Electric Dawn
by x00r
Summary: It is several months since the concluding events of Chobits. The planet is slowly falling to pieces in the wake of persocoms across the globe being reprogrammed, as their behaviour grew increasingly unpredictable. Halfway across the world, a young software engineer at a persocom manufacturing company tries to uncover the secrets of the code. But he might be running out of time.
1. Chapter 1

_Foreword: If you've not watched/read Chobits and have no idea what it's about, don't worry. You shouldn't need to have read or watched Chobits for this story to make sense, it should be able to stand on its own. If you have though, this story pretty much adopts the anime's version of events for the setting (and hopefully doesn't take too many liberties with it…)_

_Over time I may add some images of characters/other things for illustrative purposes. You'll be able to view these from my profile page in the future._

* * *

Darkness filled the long void, amplifying its emptiness. Nothing stirred within, and silence stretched into that inky blackness as if it were a tomb devoid of all life and energy. It was peaceful, in a fashion. Clean.

He stepped forward slowly, crossing the threshold. The moment his foot touched the cold tile floor inside, lights in the ceiling blossomed into life, sequentially cycling into a powered state along the length of the wide, curved corridor ahead. They cast it in a gentle antiseptic glow; bathing the walls, ceiling and white tiled floor in an even and contiguous illumination that perfectly showcased their existence to the observer.

Somewhere beyond the corridor's curve a distant grumble echoed. Its deep, guttural frequencies reverberated gently along the corridor as the origin stirred into wakefulness. That beautiful sound brought peace to him too. He sighed happily, proceeding at a leisurely pace with his shoes clicking rhythmically upon the tiled floor. Their notation was sharp and immediate. That was much less pleasant in a way, but at least the repetition was orderly, and the sound changed subtly every time, its harmonic frequencies shifting a little - ostensibly a function of the slightly different material composition of every floor tile upon which he stepped. He didn't mind that. It wasn't bad overall, so much as… interesting. Another groan rumbled its way along the corridor and he sighed contentedly again when it met his ears.

It was a few minutes before he reached the chamber, but then there it was, its thick frosted glass doors gliding graciously apart to acknowledge his presence. As they moved aside he beheld the true subject of his interest. The large form lay covered by plastic sheeting upon a wide operating table in the middle of the tall circular room, surrounded by a complex arrangement of cabling and equipment that were currently inactive. They encircled the table, their various linkages and armatures resembling a collection of lifeless metallic tree branches. The lights above the table were powered down, casting it into shadow, but even then the man could see the thick straps connecting to the table's underside pulled taut, creaking slightly.

"How are you today, dearest?" He said, his melodic voice echoing around the open space. The moment he spoke the form on the table shifted, its low and mournful response filling the air.

The man smiled warmly. "Oh? Why how lovely! You're doing well, then. Very well, I see. In that case, shall we proceed?"

The form shifted again, its grunts and gurgles becoming more desperate. Around the table, the various stationary machines began to whirr into life, long arms that previously slumped towards the floor jerking into motion, rising and swivelling to hover over their target. They slowly advanced towards the table, those with mechanical claws beginning to lift the plastic free and reveal the figure underneath.

Faced with the music of the noises that followed, the man couldn't help but allow himself a quiet, tinkling laugh. What an excellent start to an excellent day.

* * *

**Interpreter launched**

**Port 0x00FE opened**

**Link established**

**Device detected: Titch! XxX Hello bit-for-brains! 8===D **

**Ignoring invalid parameters**

**Determined: Config regs match "NEIS Minito 530"**

**Auto bank-switching active, searching target**

**Code found - hooking**

**Code hooks established!**

**Parsing code base... 0% 10% 20% 30% - soft error, instruction subset shifted **

**Observing program pattern; resyncing**

**Hooking**

**Code hooks established!**

**Parsing code base... 0% 10% - soft error, impossible branch condition**

**Unknown instruction detected. Saving program trace.**

**Searching target**

**Code found - hooking**

**ERROR: routine writing to memory segment out of valid range**

Chris sighed, slowly planting his face on the tray of keys in front of him. This was getting him nowhere... _again_. To his immediate left, a high-pitched voice giggled.

"Hahaha... no luck, grumpyguts?" a figure resembling a miniature human being sat on the edge of a closed book entitled "Persocom System Architecture", cheerily swinging her legs. Her little shoes barely brushed the desk's surface from her makeshift seat. With some effort she pulled out the cable running from her head to the computer terminal, dropping it on the desk. "Guess I win again."

"Titch..." Chris groaned, not lifting his head. "This isn't a game. I'm just doing my job. _Your_ job is to help me, you know. They didn't issue you to me so you could slack off."

"I know... sorry." she said, sounding nothing of the sort as she hopped off the book and landed on the desk. "But this is booooring. You're never going to catch it and you've been at this for months!" She huffed and crossed her tiny little arms with impatience, the two shoulder-length ponytails of her deep red hair bobbing as she shook her head. A little bell tied into her hair with a blue ribbon tinkled softly with every shake. "What am I supposed to do about it, anyway? I can't control it, stupid. That's kind of the _point_." She kicked the cable in front of her, as if it was somehow at fault instead.

"You could try a little harder, though." Chris complained, lifting his head to stare at the screen.

**ERROR: routine writing to memory segment out of valid range**

**chris:~$mnbkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjh**

"Wow. That's the best software you've written all year," Titch giggled, following his gaze. Her pupils were a similar shade of ruby to her hair, bright against the glow of the display, and they flicked towards him mischievously. "Maybe you should use your head more often."

"Use my head, nice. Well, it still makes more sense than the crap floating around inside yours right now!" Chris retorted, hopping up from his chair as the letterbox clanged downstairs, "I think I liked you better when you were normal, Titch."

He yawned, stretching, and left the little persocom rolling her eyes on the desk.

Chris walked out of his small home office and down the stairs, lost in thought. It had been several months since the "incident" that rocked the modern world, altering the programming of persocoms worldwide. At the time, nobody was quite sure what had happened. The persocoms could not explain what had changed, but many of them soon started behaving differently. _Titch included_, Chris thought, eyeing the letter laying by the front door. _She used to be much... simpler. _He remembered her emotionless words, the first time she had been powered up:

"_Boot sequence completed. Good morning. I am your new NEIS Minito 530. Please recite the confirmation code found in your instruction manual to begin my configuration._ "

Titch did not belong to Chris; she was supplied by his employer to facilitate his work, managing emails, appointments and data. But despite being a basic miniature unit with a limited personality matrix, Titch had developed abilities far beyond her factory configuration since the Event. Her language use became more spontaneous and fluent. She had opinions on things, and voiced them freely. She developed a sarcastic but playful nature. It had been subtle at first, but several months later, she was nothing like her original self.

None of it was preprogrammed, either. It had all come from this mysterious software... people were calling it a virus. This viral code, which thus far had proven impossible to analyse, let alone remove. So pervasive was it, that new persocoms off the shelves were guaranteed to be infected at some stage. With consumer knowledge that irreparable software damage could and would occur to new units, the persocom industry had been brought to its knees. Many household names were already gone -manufacturers, software outfits and retail outlets- and more were on the way.

Chris frowned. Persocoms were so tightly integrated into society, hardly any facet of human life had remained unaffected. Public services could not run effectively with their persocoms misbehaving. Utilities had faced near disaster as persocoms responsible for managing key infrastructures failed in their duties, deliberately or not. He had heard tales of Chernobyl-level events being narrowly avoided where persocoms responsible for managing critical systems became irrational and left their posts in the middle of the night. Tales of governmental agencies grinding to a halt because they were unable to function under their own extreme levels of bureaucracy without persocoms to handle the load. Even tales of unrest, of possible conflict and war, inside and between countries who couldn't fulfil their obligations to their people and their neighbours.

Despite all that – and Chris found this extremely confusing- not all persocoms responded to the virus in the same way. Some seemed to be getting along just fine, even if they behaved a little differently. Others just disappeared overnight. The inconsistency of it all just made it harder to understand.

All across the world an urgent shuffle was taking place, as humanity tried to figure out where potentially unreliable infected persocoms belonged in society.

As a software engineer for a major British persocom design company, Chris found this particularly troublesome. NEIS – NeuroElectrical Intelligence Systems – were the third-largest persocom design company in the UK. They were really struggling. Desperate to reassure the public, they had put him and many others on a challenging project to try and understand how the viral software worked. Security researchers, governmental bodies and technology companies around the world were no doubt doing the same thing.

"Are you going to open that?" Titch's voice came from the top of the stairs, startling Chris back to the present. He realised he was staring at the letter he now held in his hands.

"Probably another bill," he muttered, tearing into the envelope. Inside a single sheet of A4 contained a few hastily scribbled words:

NETBEANS CAFE, 15 MINS

Maybe not, then. Chris grinned, yanking open the door. "Hey, Sarah-"

"You stood there staring at the letter for three minutes and fourty-two-point-five seconds before opening the door." Titch said, as she hopped down the stairs. The little bell in her hair jingled quietly with every step. "Obviously she's long gone, you muppet."

Chris laughed, shutting the door. "Yeah, I guess. Well I better go, she wants me for something," he said, showing the letter to Titch who had stopped several stairs from the ground.

"Gross! Is this a date? And who _does_ that?" she snorted, snatching the letter. "Cryptic hand-delivered messages? Sarah is on the same software team as you. A simple email would have sufficed, _and_ been about three hundred times easier to send. Why, even _knocking on the door_ is an option. Honestly Chris, you keep some strange company."

"She's just screwing around." Chris said. "We're friends. You know that. Besides, look who's talking! You're stranger than anything. Go back upstairs and try the interpreter again. And watch the house for me!"

"Maybe I'll burn it down!" Titch stuck her tongue out at him as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Chris stepped into the cool late-autumn air, shutting the door behind him. He glanced at the overflowing bins outside his home. The council was having trouble with their collections again. The last time the truck turned up had been three weeks ago. At the time, Chris could've sworn the uniformed refuse collection persocoms looked angry as they'd made their way down the street.

The cafe was only ten minutes away, so Chris continued at a stroll. It was relatively quiet for an early afternoon in town, but the peaceful atmosphere was laced with a sense of unease. The usually bustling streets were reduced to just a few passers-by, most of them human. That was increasingly common in the months since the Event.

As he passed a short row of shops that used to sell persocom accessories and software (now, boarded up and out of business) his thoughts strayed back to the interpretation program – the software he and the team were designing to analyse the virus. It was supposed to find the viral code in a persocom's memory banks, then peel it apart for analysis. The problem was the code was extremely elusive. It copied itself aggressively through memory, constantly moving around and making analysis near impossible. Their software was designed to compensate for this by chasing any detected signatures through memory as they moved, but the viral code itself was constantly changing and evolving too. If they could only capture enough of it at once, they could start to peel apart its secrets, but so far all they had were unintelligible snippets, which rapidly became invalid in the context of the original code as it continued to evolve.

Chris pushed open the cafe door and scanned the room-full of primarily empty seats. His eyes stopped upon a pretty woman sipping a latte in the corner, wearing the NEIS company polo shirt under an open jacket. She spotted him over the maze of tables and waved him over energetically, spilling some coffee in the process.

"Ah shit, there goes my muffin." Sarah muttered, mopping up the coffee with a napkin and grimacing at the damp snack that sat in front of her.

"That looks _delicious,_" Chris teased, as he sat down.

"You can have it fatty, I already ate anyway." she said, shoving it over his side of the table, along with another coffee. "So you actually found my note, huh? And here I was ready to mock you for being glued to your terminals... How's it going?"

"Argh! Bad!" Chris said despairingly, dropping his head in his hands. "In fact, I think it's getting worse. I haven't gotten so much as a snippet in a week, and my mood is beginning to rub off on Titch."

"I can remember a time you'd never have said that," Sarah sighed, sipping her drink. Titch was a NEIS model 530; one of their 'Minito' portable-sized product ranges. Both NEIS employees knew well what its capabilities should have been. "Moods, now. Just... what's happening to them in there?" she tapped the side of her head with a finger, frowning in consternation.

"What about you?" Chris said, hopefully. "I know some of the guys snagged a bunch of code when they borrowed the lab computers from R and D; was there anything...?"

Sarah shook her head, blowing a strand of brown hair out of her face. "It's useless. All they had was garbage. The virus is just too resilient. If we push harder, it pushes back." she sipped from her drink again, then continued. "You know the company's response to support calls still amounts to a factory reset and a vague promise to figure out the problem... I'm beginning to feel like a target wearing this," she pointed to her company shirt. "Did you know the staff turnover in Technical Support is eight times higher than the company average now? Nobody's talking openly, but I heard it on the grapevine. Turns out most customers lose their shit when they're told 'sorry, you have to throw away all your data and start again'."

"What a surprise." Chris said, dryly. "It makes sense, though. Nearly every call is probably about the virus. Who has the energy to deal with that many angry people every day?"

"Yeah, exactly... and speaking of energy, I'm amazed at the efficiency of the virus, considering what it does." Sarah said. "You know how an infected persocom exhibits only mildly increased power consumption due to the extra load on the neurologic processors? Well, now the guys at the office think it's just about ten percent, on average. It's kinda hard to tell. These days they can't get an infected persocom to stay still long enough to finish the test."

Chris frowned. It _was_ getting worse. He knew of the tests the engineers were running over at NEIS headquarters. They were designed to minimise power consumption in a fully-active persocom, to measure the difference between models which had been infected and ones which had not. Each subject spent ten days powered up in a floatation tank to provide minimal load on their motor-structure. There they would remain, active but motionless and idling, as their power systems were allowed to run down. Chris idly wondered if he would be able to remain floating in a tube for ten days without going crazy. It was something that shouldn't have been difficult for a persocom to do.

"Anyway," Sarah said, interrupting his thoughts, "Rumour is they're calling us in to HQ, so expect an email any day now. I think we're in for a change of strategy. Not a moment too soon if you ask me. If we keep on like this I'll go crazy!" she laughed quietly, as one of the pockets on her jacket began to rustle. Chris blinked as a tiny little hand emerged, clutching at the button that held the pocket closed. Grunting and huffing sounds could be heard as the little persocom inside tried to free itself.

"Error! Nyyyghhn! Miss Brookeledge, I am stuck! Unnf! Please assist!" a shrill voice squeaked, muffled by the fabric.

"Oh, Sudo! Here," Sarah said, popping the button open. Out popped a head with short and messy fluorescent yellow hair. Equally vibrant yellow eyes swivelled around the scene, hovering on Chris before settling on Sarah herself.

"Miss Brookeledge, alarm! Lunchtime is over! Alarm! Lunchtime is over!" the persocom patted energetically at Sarah's jacket to convey the urgency of its notification.

"Thank you, Sudo. Alarm off, please." Sarah said. Sudo visibly relaxed, dropping back into the pocket and looking cheerily back towards Chris.

"Alarm deactivated! You're welcome! Hello, Mr Barker!"

"He's not infected!" Chris gasped, "_Still_? How did you do it?"

"I disabled his radio gear, and I keep him away from any terminals. It does make him a little bit useless, but he can still monitor my schedule for me." Sarah patted her personal unit affectionately ("Pat pat pat!" Sudo beamed, counting them out). He was an earlier model of the NEIS miniature lineup, and would not be all that different in capability to Titch, were it not for Titch being infected. "He is also instructed not to allow Tilda to interface with him, though god knows she's tried." Sarah's eyebrows dropped in disapproval as she referred to her rebellious work-issued unit. Tilda was definitely infected, and apparently over recent weeks had begun to exhibit the same behavioural traits as Titch, including a propensity for boredom. "She won't listen to my commands when it comes to Sudo. I think... I think she wants a friend to play with. She desperately wants him to interact with her on her own level, but of course, his personality matrix is very limited compared to her with the virus." Sarah looked conflicted. "The worst part, Chris... I think I'm beginning to believe her."

"Believe? You don't mean-!" Chris gaped at his friend. "Sarah, it's a friggin' virus. It's a software glitch – a big one, sure – but bloody hell, it isn't real!"

"How do you talk to Titch, these days? Do you issue commands? Or do you have _conversation_? Do you really treat her like you used to?" Sarah asked, looking him in the eye. He hesitated, and she spoke again before he could reply. "I'll answer that: you don't, do you?"

"Fine, I don't. But anthropomorphism is a distinctly human condition. We do it all the time. Anthropomorphising objects that already look human and talk in a lifelike manner, and interacting with them on those grounds is only natural. It doesn't mean I really think they're genuine interactions." Chris said gently, pointing to the lump in Sarah's jacket. "You just said 'thank you' to Sudo, but why? You know for sure he's just running a basic personality matrix. NEIS-OS 4.3.3, right?" Sarah nodded. "He doesn't need your praise to function, but you did it anyway. Now was that because you honestly _believe_ he is a sapient being, or because it just felt comfortable to do?"

Sarah nodded again, silently thumbing the button on her pocket.

"We're doing it even now. Look how you and I refer to them by gender, even though they're machines. It's just human nature to do that." Chris continued. "Listen. Before we were put to decoding the virus, we wrote modules for NEIS-OS, right? Your last project was an improved adaptive learning algorithm for our latest personality matrix. Remember that? You should know better than nearly anyone else that it's just software."

Sarah nodded again. "Yes..." she sighed, regaining some confidence. "Yes, I know. But Chris, she feels so real. I know persocoms can pass for human on messageboards online, and with better personality matrices, they're convincing in person too, but... nothing like this. And certainly not our little mobile units." She got up from the table, and Chris stood up too. "Anyway... time to go. I'll see you later."

"Thanks for the coffee." Chris said, hugging her goodbye before she left the cafe. He watched her go, finishing his own drink pensively. Truth be told, he _had_ been treating Titch differently. Very differently. He just hadn't really noticed to begin with. She'd started changing only a week after the Event. He'd try to set an alarm or a calendar entry, or ask her to send an email, and Titch would obey, but not without a "_that seems a little late_," or "_this email is inefficient; it's unnecessarily long_". He'd not paid these comments much heed – during use, persocoms can and do interject with suggestions they feel are beneficial to their masters – but their frequency had increased, and they soon grew more complex and introspective: "_It annoys me that you set this so late, I keep telling you, you're never on time for this._" "_Can't you write a more interesting message? You drone on and on but you illustrated your point in the first paragraph..._". Now, she would have an entire debate about the efficacy of his work routine given the chance, and he rarely dictated emails to her, as she seemed able to articulate any information he requested in messages written all by herself; that last being an ability usually reserved for far more capable "full-sized" persocoms. Yes, he definitely treated her less like an appliance. In fact, with the accelerated changes over the last several weeks... if anything, he was getting so used to the fluent and lifelike way she talked and behaved, he was treating her more like a...

_Friend?_

Although he didn't want to admit it to Sarah, it was beginning to bother him, too.


	3. Chapter 3

Chris strode briskly on the way home. He'd loitered at the cafe too long; his supervisor would have words with him if he logged in late from lunch again. But as he rounded the final corner, he was surprised to see a NEIS van pulling up outside his home.

"Uh, hello?" Chris said, walking up and looking in consternation at the driver has he hopped out.

"Chris Barker?" the driver asked gruffly. Chris flashed him his company badge, and the man nodded in satisfaction. "OK then. Wait right here, please."

Chris watched as the man trotted to the back of the van and threw open the doors, raising the tail-lift to meet the level of the van's floor. With a bit of rummaging he emerged some moments later, pulling out a box truck with a large wooden crate loaded, and lowering it to the ground.

"Sign, please." he said, proffering a clipboard with a purchase invoice attached. Chris balked at the contents.

"Wha-? But I didn't order this! What's going on?" he said, staring at the paperwork. It was for a competitor company's persocom. He looked at the box in consternation. "I can't sign for this!"

"Why? It didn't cost you anything, you lucky bastard!" the delivery guy chuckled, tapping the part of the document that listed the price.

**Item: ****KESS-PA 1401**

******Description: ****Q7P4A6BA3T**

**********Qty: ****01**

**************Unit Cost: £****0.00**

******************Total Cost(ex VAT): £****0.00**

"But I-"

"C'mon mate, just sign it. You can take it up with NEIS later. Say, you're one of our software boys, entcha? What're you guys up to, anyway?" the man's voice carried an accusatory undertone. "My wife's losing her marbles trying to get our persocom to do anything. It sits there like a grumpy teenager, watching TV. NEIS won't honour the bloody warranty either, even though I'm an employee. When're you gonna fix these bloody things?"

"It's complicated," Chris said defensively, snatching the pen from the clipboard and scrawling his signature. Better not to engage on whether a viral infection was covered under warranty (it certainly wasn't).

"Complicated. Uhuh. Well, best of luck, mate. We're all counting on you lot." the man said, unloading the box at Chris's doorstep with a grunt. "Have a good day, then."

Chris watched, bemused, as the delivery driver climbed back into his van and drove away. The side was emblazoned with the NEIS logo and a slogan: "_NEIS: Improving Your Future_". He turned to the box at his side. The logo was NEIS too, but the papers distinctly listed a unit from Karma Electrotechnical. The most expensive manufacturer in the country, KESS only competed with NEIS on their low-end and some mid-range units, spec-for-spec. Chris wasn't too knowledgeable on their product range (leave it to marketing and R and D to pick apart the competition!) but this looked to be one of their mid-range units; an easy match for any top-of-the-range NEIS model, and priced to suit. Chris gulped as he heaved it with difficulty through his front door.

The hallway lights were on, and the air warm and welcoming compared to the mild chill outside. As he shut the door, the tinkling of a little bell directed Chris's attention to the living room doorway. There Titch stood, tiny arms folded and a scowl on her face.

"So they _weren't_ just trying to piss me off." She growled, glowering at the box while Chris gently lowered it to the floor.

"Do you know something I don't?" Chris demanded, meeting her stern gaze with one of his own. He stood and arched his back. That box was _heavy_.

"...Yes." Titch said, trotting closer to the box. "You received an email from 'Kevin' in R and D six-point-three-two minutes after you left the building, and... Well, _congratulations_," she waved her hands in the air in a mocking gesture of celebration, "you are now the proud owner of a KESS-PA persocom. It's officially yours. Apparently R and D needed rid of them since they're just cluttering up the building. Guess they're on to other models? Anyway, instead of destroying them, they are dumping several on your software team. Something about the competitor models' different architectures being useful for your work. Pfft. Implying _I_ am not useful enough!" she huffed, bell tinkling as she tossed her hair indignantly.

Chris looked back to the box, all thoughts of logging back into the office forgotten. His very own persocom? Sure, he had Titch... but she was technically an office asset. Excluding basic keychain models amounting to little more than a way to manage calendars and appointments, he'd never had a proper unit of his own before. It hadn't been a hindrance in him landing his job (though in the interviews he had surmised that it might) as there really was very little about persocom system architecture that could be gleaned from actually owning one; abstraction from the machine-level was kind of the point, after all. He chuckled, shaking his head. Now that so many of them were infected, he could no longer be sure he knew how they worked inside _or_ out.

"Oh, funny is it? Well don't comfort me or anything," Titch grumbled, tugging at the leg of his jeans as she clambered up his body and settled on his right shoulder. "Come on then, let's get this over with." she poked the side of his head impatiently.

"Right," Chris said, pulling open the latches around the front of the box. He heaved the heavy padded lid open to reveal the figure inside. There lay what seemed to be a beautiful young woman, her long ringlets of midnight blue hair draped lightly over a shapely figure clad in what appeared to be a particularly revealing French maid's outfit.

"Oh, for-! _Gross_, Chris!" Titch shouted, looking away. "Is this really necessary?"

"Bloody hell. Well... it's either a foreign model or a custom." Chris said with certainty. "They'd never be able to sell something like this off the shelves here. Not in normal stores, anyway. I've seen KESS models out-of-box before. KESS usually dress them in clothes you'd find in any typical high-street store, just like our units." He studied the box's contents thoughtfully, earning himself a sharp pinch on the ear.

"Hey! Should I be jealous?" Titch asked warningly, shooting him a sidelong glance.

"Ahh! What? Ow! No, look here!" Chris reached down and gently gripped the persacom's arm. His fingers sunk into it slightly, like they would real flesh. "See?" Chris said. Titch gasped, lights dancing behind her eyes as she performed a brief web search via her internal modem.

"Electromotive Micro-elastic Muscle fibres... no servomotors then?" Titch said, incredulous. "And a DFP system? Now I am _definitely_ jealous."

"Amazing," Chris murmured. He'd watched the assembly process for top-end NEIS models in the factory, before. Dermal Fluid Pathways were the latest in chassis design. Sugar-based branching structures were 3D-printed over the assembled persocom chassis, followed by a dip in polymer compounds that would form a convincing analogue of human skin. A laser hardening process rapidly solidifies the polymer surrounding the persocom's form, and once completed, the sugar structures beneath were dissolved in warm fluid to leave a network of hollow channels permeating the skin structure not unlike blood vessels. Coolant would circulate through these, dissipating heat much as would occur in a real human body. Chris remembered the technician on the factory floor proudly remarking about how the newest DFP systems incorporated sealing agents in the coolant such that any minor damage or leaks were self-healing when exposed to air-

Another sharp pinch. "Get a grip, Chris." Titch muttered. "Hurry up and flick her switch, already. It's creeping me out how still she is."

Chris reached behind the persocom's ear. Unlike many models, this one appeared to have decidedly human ears. Most full-size models sported noticeable plastic protrusions in place of ears, serving not only to identify them as persocoms but to facilitate the containment of communication elements like data cables and antennae.

_Definitely custom_, he thought, as he pressed a patch of skin just behind the ear. It clicked under his finger, and the subtle whine of switching regulators could be heard briefly before they ramped up beyond audible range. The persocom's chest began to gently rise and fall in a breathing pattern; another method of cooling internal components.

A moment later the persocom opened her eyes, irises calmly coming to rest on Chris and Titch. Titch murmured in quiet fascination on his shoulder; like pools of water at sundown, those eyes seemed to subtly shift between several hues of deep red and purple as they moved in the light.

"Hello," she said smoothly, sitting up. "Nice to meet-" the persocom paused mid-greeting, apparently pausing to stare at her own body, her eyebrows rising in an expression of surprise.

"Oh! The clothes - I – I wasn't – that isn't, they're not what - I mean you don't need to-" Chris tried to say, but before he could finish the sentence, the persocom began sifting through the packaging in which she sat.

"My apologies – I seem to be missing my user manual." she said, with the slightest of frowns. "We need this to continue, as it contains my confirmation code."

"Ooh, of course... she wants her manual. But this isn't her original box," Titch whispered. "Maybe we don't have it."

"Wait a sec," Chris said, inwardly heaving a sigh of relief as he picked up the invoice. _Idiot_, he thought. _You didn't pick the bloody clothes. Lecture Sarah on anthropomorphising persocoms, and then you worry one's judging you?_ He looked at the "Description" field, then turned to his persocom. _You're just projecting. It was looking for its manual._

"Q-Seven-P-Four-A-Six-B-A-Three-T" he said. The persocom regarded him for a moment, appearing to consider his words.

"Code accepted." she said, bobbing her head. "Thank you. We should begin configuration, but it would normally be best to read the manual first. Since it is missing, I will help you as best I can instead. Do you wish to name me?"

"_Bit-For-Brains_! Hahaha_gmmpf_!" Titch chirped, giggling until Chris grabbed her head with his hand.

"Bit-For-Brains," repeated the beautiful persocom, eliciting another muffled cackle from Chris's shoulder. "Is this correct?"

"No," Chris said firmly, releasing Titch, who grinned mischievously.

"How about 'Sweetheart'?" she continued, snickering. "Or, oh why not... just 'BOOBS'... in all-caps! Ahahahahaha!"

"Titch! That's it. Go put the kettle on. I need to think." He strode to the kitchen, dropped Titch unceremoniously on the worktop and shooed her towards the kettle, ignoring her protests. The blue-haired persocom waited politely as Chris returned, dropping back to a sitting position and searching his mind for a name.

"It didn't take you this long to name me!" Titch huffed from the kitchen as the kettle began to boil. Chris ignored her still, thinking. It didn't help that his new persocom sat there so quietly, watching. Name after name passed through his head, until in frustration he decided to just grab at one.

"How about... Ivy?" he said, uncertainly.

"Ivy? Is this correct?"

"Uh...Yes."

"Ivy." she said, trying the sound. "My name is Ivy." Ivy smiled. "Thank you. It is nice. What is your name?"

"...Chris."

"Thank you, Chris. That is all we need to begin with, but it is recommended we continue. There are many other settings we can discuss, and I can also explain the ways I can be most effective in helping around the home. Would you like to do that now or review later?"

"Later, please. I'll be back in a minute," Chris said, getting up and wandering into the kitchen.

"I will adopt the defaults for now," Ivy said, nodding.

"You have a message," Titch sniffed, sitting on the windowsill near the kettle as Chris walked into the kitchen. "It's from Sarah. She says you're a pervert."

"What? Titch, did you say something to her?"

"I might have sent her a picture of you gawping at your new toy, yes."

"_Titch!_"

"What? Is this some kind of secret, now? Heh, that's even worse, Chris. I better compile a follow-up to let her know you didn't mean for her to find out-"

"Waah! Stop! I'll talk to her myself!" Chris shouted. Titch shrugged, grinning.

"Of course, as you wish, _master_." Titch said in mock reverence, bell tinkling as she made a comical bow.

Chris stared at the coffee he had made, trying to process the last fifteen minutes of his life. In particular, he paid extra attention to the way Titch had behaved. Nothing she had said fell outside the purview of custom programming, but...

"_Well, don't comfort me, or anything..._ "

"_Do I need to be jealous?_ "

He glanced at Titch, swinging her legs from her perch on the windowsill, pouting. She'd been speaking of feelings in conversation so much recently. Such emotive and reactive comments, coming from a basic miniature model? That would be extremely sophisticated for one, given their neurologic processors numbered only in the hundreds of thousands. At the least their power consumption should be far beyond that of a unit with standard software, working those processors so hard - but hers weren't worked much harder at all. He'd heard of software companies abroad who had packages which could bring a similar level of realism to miniatures, but only with heavy power and utility caveats, and only within a limited range of contexts. It had been different a couple of months ago; he could have believed Titch was running such software, then. But now? Now, to his knowledge, there was no subject or circumstance Titch couldn't dryly comment on, or poke fun at, and all without skipping a beat.

He rubbed his ear absentmindedly, and his expression darkened. Titch _pinched_ him. It should not have been possible for a NEIS persocom on standard software to consider causing a human being pain, no matter how innocuous. Of course, with custom software this went out the window, and obviously that includes the virus too, which was disturbing – come of think of it, KESS themselves had an entire range dedicated for security and defence applications, he wondered what was happening to those-

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Titch squealed, causing Chris to jump and slosh coffee over the worktop. She was pointing towards the kitchen door.

Chris whirled around (distributing more coffee across the floor) and gasped. There stood Ivy... dressed in his clothes.

"What are you-?" Chris had half the question out, but the persocom had already begun to explain.

"My apologies, Chris. I got the impression you didn't like my factory clothing, so I changed." she plucked at the loose-fitting fabric. Elastic-waistbanded tracksuit bottoms Chris had left out disappeared beneath an old T-shirt that was far too large. Chris noticed she had rolled up the legs where they would otherwise have been trailing along the floor, revealing a pair of bare feet. "I found these upstairs when I went to learn the layout of this home."

_She picked up on that?_ Chris thought, remembering his outburst from earlier. _...Of course she did. _He recalled an extract from his books on system architecture. "_Full-sized models are extremely perceptive, and their adaptive logic capabilities allow them to make autonomous decisions well beyond the capabilities of simpler models."_

"Is this more acceptable?" Ivy asked, "If not, I can try to find something else. Would you happen to have any clothes in my size?"

"Oho! What _is_ your size, hourglass?" Titch sniggered. _"_I _have_ to send Sarah a picture of this, Chris. This is even funnier."

"Titch-!"

"Oops! TOO LATE! Bahahahahaha!"

"Command mode! Password: amnesia! Deactivate!" Chris said, angrily. He scowled as Titch slumped over, expressionless.

Chris took a deep swig from his coffee, nearly burning himself in the process. Having not received a reply, Ivy had walked into the room and made for the kitchen roll, proceeding to mop up the coffee on the floor. Chris watched from over the rim of his coffee mug, decidedly uncomfortable and unsure what to say. It was one thing to see a full persocom working in a public setting, like a restaurant, or a bank, or a shopping centre, or even round friends' and family's places... but now one was here, in his own home? Yes, if he'd chosen his own personal unit, it would've been a miniature model, like Titch. One that wouldn't have arrived in a fetishist's housemaid uniform. Or looked so lifelike. And it would've been a NEIS model, too. That way he'd at least have a reassuring amount of knowledge on how it was programmed.

"Are you hungry? Shall I prepare a meal?" Ivy asked gently, not looking up from her task.

"Uh, no... thanks." Chris mumbled, acutely aware of his words to Sarah just before she left the cafe.

"A drink, then?"

"No - Oh, before I forget-"

"Yes?" Ivy said, standing up to face him. He was six feet tall on a good day, but Ivy was nearly a full foot shorter.

"This is Titch," Chris plucked the lifeless persocom off the windowsill and showed her to Ivy. "She's a NEIS Minito 530 infected with a highly contagious software virus. Under no circumstances must you interact with her electronically, or you will be infected too."

The persocom's eyes regarded Titch coolly. "I see," she said, her expression wavering towards confusion. "I'm afraid I have limited information on that model and I cannot seem to access the web. Would you like to configure my connectivity settings? I am equipped with WiODA for fast and reliable performance."

"That won't be necessary," Chris said, putting Titch back down. "Unfortunately any kind of Internet connectivity could expose you too. I don't have a spare account set up for you, anyway... um, sorry."

"I see," the persocom said, bobbing her head. "This may limit my effectiveness, and I'm sorry for that; I would usually draw extensively upon the net, at least during the first few weeks of activation. Nevertheless, I shall do my best."

"Oh, you can still use a computer," Chris said, referring to the various units littering the house, "Just no data cables. Eyes and ears only, eh-heh!" he laughed weakly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I understand," she smiled, hair bouncing as she bobbed her head. "A good first step would be for me to clean the house and catalogue its contents. If there is nothing else, shall I begin?"

"Yes – uh, thanks." Chris said, "I've got work to do. I'll... be upstairs if you need me."

He walked out of the room, shaking his head. There was definitely something creepy about having a full-sized persocom wandering subserviently about his house.

_Damnit, Sarah. Why'd you have to screw with my head?_

The blue-haired persocom resumed mopping the floor, as the sound of Chris's footsteps receded up the stairs.

"Psst!" said a little voice, from the worktop. Ivy looked up to see Titch peering over the edge of the kitchen surface, very much awake. "He's a good guy, really. You'll like it here!"

Ivy cocked her head quizzically to one side. "You haven't deactivated?" she said, a hint of curiosity in her voice.

Titch chuckled, her bell tinkling quietly. "Pfft, no! I just pretended. Sometimes that man has no sense of humour. You really threw him for a loop, you know." she resumed her perch on the edge of the windowsill, grinning at Ivy's expression.

"Me?"

"The mighty KESS model is confused! Hehe. Yes, you! Turning up all unexpected like that, wearing that ridiculous costume! Honestly. You're so pretty, too. And that voice..." Titch's eyebrows flickered briefly downwards, betraying her displeasure. "But hey, maybe we can be friends. I'm bored out of my mind, these days."

"I would like that, Titch." Ivy nodded, standing up. "Where's the bin, please?"

"Bah... You're just saying that 'cuz you're programmed to." Titch grumbled, pointing at a cupboard under the sink. "What matrices are you running anyway? For such a high-end unit, you're blank as a sheet of paper right now."

"My database indicates I am running Karma Electrical Services and Solutions' Aria ESC, 5.45b. " Ivy said, peering into the cupboard and dropping the damp kitchen towels inside.

"An emotional software cortex? Yikes." Titch whistled softly. "No expense spared, I see. Why are you such a plank of wood, then?"

Ivy blinked.

"It's a turn of phrase that means 'emotionless'", Titch sighed.

"I see. I may appear so as I am not yet configured. Over time, I will learn the appropriate behaviour and self-configure, if no discreet changes are made. "

Titch grinned, her eyes flashing as she quickly checked some parameters on the net. "Discreet changes? I have some suggestions."


	4. Chapter 4

"How about that?" Chris asked, fingers flicking over the keyboard. Titch sat beside him on the desk, a look of concentration on her face as data poured through the cable connecting her to the terminal.

"It's like I can feel it moving," she said, grimacing. "It's OK, though. I'm ready. Here we go. Up aggression."

Chris carefully tapped a few more keys. The terminal's powerful fans spooled up to meet the load, and Titch winced, gasping out loud. Chris quickly made to undo the changes. "Titch, are you OK? That's it, we're pushing too hard; I'm backing down-"

"No!" Titch said forcefully, squinting. "Nnnmh - Don't be a pussy. I'm - fine. How's the hook rate?"

"It's actually steady. For once we're keeping up. You're doing well!"

"But- aah- is it enough?" she asked, hopefully. Chris anxiously studied the screen for a few moments, then sighed.

"...No, it's still falling over. Just keeping up won't work, at this rate we'll be left with invalid code again... if we get anything at all." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I'm sorry, Titch. Maybe we should stop for now."

"N-no. Ahh!" The little persacom growled. She turned her head with difficulty to look him in the eye. "Thirty seconds. Do it. Promise me you won't s-stop."

Chris met her determined gaze. "...Titch, that's too much for you-"

"_Promise me!" _she interrupted him fiercely, dropping her head with exertion. "I can...nnyyn... do this for you. Thirty seconds. Full load. I want to... Just_ d-do it! Promise!_"

Chris looked uncertainly at the monitor, hesitating. He couldn't. They shouldn't. No, it was too dangerous-

"Chris?" she whispered beseechingly. "P-Please..."

"I... promise." Chris said, reluctantly punching in a few more keys. Titch flashed him a shaky smile as he pressed Enter.

Then she threw back her head, and screamed.

"TITCH!" Chris yelled, scrabbling for the cable where it plugged into the terminal.

"AAAH NOOO! YOU PROMISED! YOU PROMISED! YOU FUCKING PROMISED!" she wailed, her piercing voice ringing in Chris's ears. He gritted his teeth, forcing his hand to move away. Titch convulsed, falling over. The screaming did not stop.

Chris turned desperately to the monitor, his eyes flying over the readout. It was working. Twenty seconds. An eternity.

_Hurry!_

Titch's body began to spasm, her anguished cries coming in shrill bursts now. Chris picked her up and held her as gently as he could, tears springing to his eyes as her little body failed in his hands. He felt the heat growing inside her.

_Ten seconds_.

Titch fell to whimpering, her spasms slowing down.

_8 seconds_

"_I can..._"

_7 seconds_

"_do... it..._"

_6 seconds_

She fell silent, twitching.

_Oh no_.

Smoke. She fell still.

_Titch!_

He tore the cable from the terminal. She was too hot to touch, but he held her anyway.

_TITCH_!

The smoke was thick, now. His hands seared with the pain.

_NO_

As her body began to melt in front of him, Chris was the one who was screaming.

**_NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO_**

Chris gasped, opening his eyes. "_Titch_!"

Bedroom ceiling.

A dream.

_Oh thank Christ_.

He exhaled, lifting his arms to look at his shaking hands. Hands that just a moment ago had held... No. He dropped his hands onto his face, groaning. The rest of the day had been uneventful. He'd left Titch downstairs, deactivated. Admittedly, he shouldn't have. Without her he couldn't run tests on the Interpreter, so he had resigned to fruitlessly pouring over the useless snippets they'd found. But then he remembered, he was still angry at her.

_Just a machine... right?_

He sighed. Two of them, now. He wondered how Ivy got on last night. Truthfully, he'd been avoiding his new persacom. He'd heard her moving quietly about the house at times, behind the locked home office door. She never tried the handle, and Chris had no idea if she knew it was locked or not. She was nowhere to be seen when he'd gone to bed; perhaps being quiet downstairs.

Chris stretched, splaying his legs a little. His leg bumped into something warm and soft, and so he reflexively rolled over... coming face-to-face with Ivy.

"Morning, roomie!" she said chirpily, poking him on the nose.

"YAA-WHAT THE F-ooof!" Chris scrambled away from the persacom, landing roughly on the bedroom floor.

Ivy sat up and yawned, stretching. "Phew! That was a _good_ night. This bed's really comfy!" she bounced on it experimentally, grinning and wrinkling her nose as she looked at him.

Heart racing with fright and confusion, Chris stared, panting, at a complete loss for words as silence fell. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, a loud high-pitched laugh spilled into the room from the doorway.

"_AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA_!" Titch cried, as Ivy joined in with the laughter. "Ooh, just look at your stupid face! Hahaa! You look like a deer in headlights. Aaand *click*!" She held her little hands up, making a picture frame of the scene. "That one's your new background on every terminal in the house."

"Hehehe! You were right," Ivy laughed, waving at the still-hysterical Titch. "That reaction was priceless!"

"I KNOW! Ohh Chris, you don't look so good. Rough night? Hahaha!" Titch guffawed.

"What. The _fuck_. Is going on?" Chris grated, his voice wavering with stress as he glared at the two of them. Ivy bounced out of the bed and waltzed out of the room, laughing all the way. "Titch, what have you done?"

"Well," Titch said, trotting towards him in between fits of giggling that sent her little bell ringing. "It turns out Ivy's running the latest KESS ESC, hahaha -And - and wouldn't you know, heheh, _someone_ went and left her on default settings yesterday! Hahaha! Soooo... I thought I'd make few changes!"

She pointed back at the empty doorway, hardly holding herself together. "Snnnrk! What - what do you think, Chris? Do - do you likey? Hahahahaha!"

"For fuck's sake, Titch... arrgh!" Chris clapped a hand to his face. "No, I don't. This is awkward as shit. Set her back!" Five minutes awake and his nerves were already a bag of smashed bricks!

"Oh come _on_, you wuss. I saw how creeped out you were by her yesterday and she did as well, you know! You couldn't wait to get away from her! This is definitely better than you tip-toeing around your own house."

"Coffee?" Ivy said cheerfully, as she strode back into the room with a mug. "Titch is right." she explained, matter-of-factly. "I'd have adjusted anyway, as dictated by my default parameters. Adjustment helps me integrate better into any families I'll live with by becoming more like them. Titch just sped things up a little."

"Over four thousand parameters configured!" Titch beamed, proudly. "Boy, she sure is complicated. You know, for a machine. I bet that manual comes in a bigger box than you did, Ivy!" Ivy laughed at that, putting the cup on the bedside table and flopping back onto the covers.

"Woa, wait - Titch - changes?! Ivy, you connected to Titch? Oh no! No, I told you not to do that!" Chris said frantically, picking himself up off the floor.

"Of course I didn't. You told me not to. So we just talked it out!" Ivy said, cheerfully.

"Which, by the way, took _forever_. You're _welcome_." Titch said, hands on hips and bell jingling as she waggled her head from side to side.

Chris reached for the coffee. Closing his eyes, he blocked out the noisy room for a moment and took a long, deep drink. It tasted good, and it was the perfect temperature.

"Why did you listen to her, Ivy?" Chris asked grumpily, looking at the mug. She did _not_ deserve thanks for this delicious coffee.

"You didn't tell me not to _listen_," Ivy retorted, "Besides, collecting data from persocoms about the people I interact with falls within the purview of my default settings, as does modifying my own parameters like I said." she paused for a second, considering him. "You should know that, surely? You work on this sort of stuff for a living, Titch said."

"I do know that." Chris said indignantly. "I... just... It's the morning, I'm... tired. Shut up. Both of you, go away."

Ivy shrugged, hopping up and leaving the room with the legs of her jogging bottoms trailing along the floor. Titch stayed right where she was.

"Aww, Cwissy. I'm sorry." she said, pouting cutely. "But please give Ivy a chance. Maybe she wouldn't be _quite_ like this if she'd auto-set... but trust me, it's better this way. I _love_ her like this, she's so funny! You know this was practically her idea, heh! She said it would be way more fun than a wake-up alarm. It took her two minutes and four-point-three-four seconds to sneak into that bed 'cuz of the squeaky floorboards and then you woke yourself up anyway, but oooh, it was still totally worth it-"

"Titch," Chris said quietly, putting his cup down as he remembered. "Why are you not deactivated?"

Titch's eyes flew wide open. For several seconds, she didn't speak. "Uh... Oh. Well-"

"You pretended, yesterday." Chris stated, not looking at her.

"...yeah."

"You ignored a deactivation instruction."

"...y-yeah."

Titch appeared to wilt before him.

"Please leave." Chris said, quieter still. She left quickly, pattering out of the room without another word.

Chris fought down a rising sense of panic. Titch might ignore an everyday request; indeed, she did that a lot lately. But now she could bypass a call to command mode? Now, Titch could circumvent a deactivation request? The implications were terrifying. Nothing took higher priority than a call to command mode from an authorised human, at least in NEIS system architecture. All upper levels of the operating system were bypassed, creating a direct link to the underlying logic. If infected persocoms could refuse such requests...!

Chris finished the coffee slowly, calming his jangling nerves. Just a dream. Titch was OK. She was probably right about Ivy, too.

In spite of himself, he chuckled. It was kind of a funny prank, in retrospect.


	5. Chapter 5

Chris walked quietly down the stairs as the tempting smell of breakfast wafted up from below. It appeared Ivy was cooking, though what exactly he couldn't tell.

He wondered what Titch had told Ivy while they were together yesterday evening. Four thousand parameters... no doubt combined with a host of data about himself and Titch. How much of it had been correct... Or even remotely honest? Titch was changing so rapidly these past few weeks, there was no telling what she might have said.

There was no way he had the time to fact-check that many settings and data. Briefly he wondered if he shouldn't format the new persocom and configure her properly -a process that would take weeks- but something about doing that made him feel uneasy. It shouldn't have - after all, it wasn't like there were any critical files stored on Ivy that couldn't be lost. Certainly not after a single day out of the box. She wasn't like Titch, anyway. Which is to say, Titch had lots of critical work files stored in memory. Yes, that was it.

But this meant resigning to whatever changes Titch had made. That definitely sounded like trouble, if this morning was any indication.

He sighed, strolling across the hallway. Maybe it would be better this way, he thought. An emotional software cortex was a rare thing, but perhaps the most realistic analogue to genuine human behavioural mechanisms you could find. It could draw on the persocom's knowledge and past experiences to make best-guess analyses of given inputs, arriving at the most logically sound emotional response. This made them feel more spontaneous than normal matrices which relied on programmable libraries of behaviours and limited contextual modification.

An ESC was still only as good as the data it had access to, but he felt like Titch would have done a thorough job in that respect. If true, treating Ivy like a real person would be easy... Ah, but if only that were all there was to it! Better to live with _someone_ rather than _something_ which simply looked human, no matter how convincing. He didn't know if he could get over the fact that Ivy was just a machine. Or that she looked so much like she wasn't. If only she was a miniature model. That would be way less weird.

He walked into the kitchen.

"Morning again." Ivy said, flashing him a smile as she upended a saucepan, splattering a messy pile of food onto a plate. "Try not to fling yourself across the room this time, ok?"

A small table sat in the corner of the kitchen. Chris flopped into a chair, rubbing his sleepy eyes. At least it was the weekend now. He didn't think he could handle anything complicated, today.

Ivy sat down opposite him, dropping the plate and cutlery in front of herself. Chris stared, confused. It really didn't look all that appetising; a mash of vegetables, baked beans and bacon.

"Is that-"

"Mine." she said nonchalantly, stabbing a bit of carrot with a fork and popping it into her mouth.

Chris blinked. "Uh... you're... eating?"

Ivy chewed slowly, looking him in the eyes. "Yum" she said.

"But you can't!" he protested, feeling stupid. "Persocoms don't eat, what the hell are you doing?"

"Sure I do." Ivy replied conversationally. "You don't know much about KESS persocoms do you? The food goes into my internal anaerobic digester, where it's broken down for energy. Typically one meal gets me through a single day, give or take a few hours. "

"No way. What happens afterwards?" Chris said, incredulously.

"After?" she said, grinning and raising her eyebrows. "Oh, you mean...?" she pointed downwards, and Chris cringed.

"Ooh god, did I really just ask you that question?"

"Hey, it's OK. I don't mind. What happens is, at the end of the day I go outside, pull down my trousers, and burn the excess solids and gases off in a massive fireball that shoots out of my arse."

Chris blinked again and Ivy giggled. She spat the carrot at him, making him jump in surprise; it sailed across the space between them and landed in his hair.

"Eugh, hey-!"

"I'm messing with you," she said gently, shoving the plate across the table as he picked the vegetable out of his hair. It was completely un-chewed. "And before you call me gross for spitting, consider that you just asked me if I poop."

Chris scowled, causing Ivy to laugh again. "Wow, you're really not a morning person, are you? Go on, eat up."

"You are every inch the persocom I feared Titch would turn you into." he said grouchily, eyeing the plate's contents. "Um, thanks for this, but what's with the whole..."

"What do you mean?" Ivy said, studying the plate with concern. "Is something wrong with the food?"

"Uh... well... no... it's just... different?" Chris offered, trying not to grimace as he shovelled the goop into his mouth.

Ivy sighed in frustration. "I knew it. I _knew_ I was doing it wrong. Sorry, I don't really know the specifics of cooking, or any recipes. _Someone_ is keeping me from the net, remember?" she said pointedly, poking his leg with her foot. "I thought Titch was gonna help but I guess she has other plans. All the same, this meal should be nutritionally balanced, based on its ingredients."

"Don't KESS persocoms ship with culinary packages installed?" Chris asked, glad to move on to more comfortable discussion.

"Not really. In fact we ship with very little except for base logic, reasoning and learning software, a personality matrix, and a core knowledge library comprising a host of data about basic everyday objects, electronics, sciences, chemistry, physics, and such. That's enough to get started. Normally we pull any necessary software and data from the web, when it's needed." She studied him as he ate. "As a result, I can tell you the approximate nutrient content of the meal you're eating, as well as reassure you that it's properly cooked and safe to eat. But I have no idea if the ingredients taste good or belong together. Speaking of which, you don't have to eat it if you don't want to, you know. You won't hurt my feelings."

"Interesting. Do you think you have feelings?" Chris mumbled deliberately, his mouth full. He watched her carefully as she replied.

"...My ESC processes and respond to stimuli according to its configuration." she said coolly. "Does that answer your question?"

Chris tried not to wince. It would've been a tactless question, technically. But that was quite the predictable machine response, right there... Wasn't it? He continued eating, but assured himself it was only because he was really hungry. Ivy curled up on her chair, perching her feet on the chair's edge and planting her chin on her knees. She swayed gently from side to side as he ate, watching him.

"Am I less creepy this way?" she asked quietly. Chris nearly choked on his mouthful - where did _that_ come from?!

"Oh..." he swallowed the food with some effort "...you weren't creepy. The _idea_ of you was creepy." he said, immediately regretting his choice of words.

"I see..." she replied, looking at the floor.

_Bloody ESCs..._

"I mean I feel uncomfortable having someth... having you wandering around the house like some sort of human servant." he said, trying to explain.

"Oh... Sooo, I wasn't creepy? Not even a teeny bit?" Ivy squinted as she pinched two fingers together. Chris chuckled.

"Maybe a little. That costume you were wearing was the worst."

"Haha - hey! _That's_ what got you? I thought it was me being all - how did Titch put it? 'Disgustingly subservient and formal and stuff'." Ivy bobbed her head like she had been doing yesterday, speaking with a meek tone. "Like this, Chris? Don't you remember?"

"Argh, stop... that's true, but imagine if you kept wearing that thing too! That would be infinitely worse!" Chris laughed. "That reminds me, we need to get you some proper clothes today," he said, motioning to Ivy's old T-shirt. "My stuff doesn't fit you at all."

"Really, you think so?" Ivy tugged the trailing ends of her jogging bottoms. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Chris made to laugh, but it turned into a cough over a particularly dry lump of what might have been potato. He moved to get a drink but Ivy was around his side of the table before he'd finished standing, pushing him back into his chair.

"Sit down, stupid. It looks like you can barely cope with eating, let alone operating a kettle." Ivy walked across the kitchen and set to making another coffee as Chris managed a strangled "thanks".

A few minutes later, Chris drank gratefully from a perfect cup. "That's better..." he said, when he finally lowered it. "Phew. Hey, about your coffees-"

"Why are they so good when my food is so awful?" she interrupted, smiling slightly. "Titch showed me how you like them already. Where is she, anyway? I miss the squeaking!"

Chris chuckled, but his face fell afterwards. "I sort of told her off after you went downstairs. She's either hiding, sulking or both. The thing is, she disobeyed a request in command mode. That's very bad, for many reasons."

"Isn't she infected, though?" Ivy said. "Doesn't that mean it's not her fault?"

"...Maybe." Chris said pensively. He sighed defeatedly. "Oh, I don't know any more! She's so unpredictable now."

"She wasn't always this way?"

"I guess she didn't tell you? She's not a very advanced model. She shouldn't be capable of the complexity she shows in her behaviour and responses to stimuli, but something about that virus lets her do it anyway."

"I see…" Ivy said, frowning. "I figured she was running an ESC. I suppose that's not normal for that size of persocom? She avoided the question when I asked, come to think of it."

"That's right. She hasn't nearly enough neurologic processors to handle an ESC. Some software companies do offer cut down versions for her size, but they're limited. Generally miniature models support only basic interaction complexity through simple personality matrices. She shouldn't be able to express anything resembling emotions or feelings beyond a very limited subset, for instance. They're generally pre-programmed to be energetic and cheery, since most people find that pleasant."

"Interesting... I didn't know. Poor thing. Do you think she was embarrassed?" Ivy said, playing absent-mindedly with a strand of hair.

Chris froze for a moment, a look of disbelief on his face. "Do I think she was embarrassed? Wow," He said, putting his mug on the table. "Your ESC is amazing. This conversation was getting pretty deep."

"Wha-"

"I'm going to... I'm going upstairs."

"Chris, wait-"

"Tidy this up, please." he said, hurrying out of the room without looking back.

_I sort of got used to it from Titch. She changed so slowly, it wasn't a shock. But Ivy? Yesterday she was... and now today... it's uncanny. _Chris thought, striding up the stairs. He had been drawn right in, it was so convincing. That software was incredible! He'd have to ask Sarah how the KESS ESC worked; surely she knew more, as she was working on that exact sort of thing before the virus struck. If only he'd chosen her project instead, then maybe he'd understand.

_Hypocrite._

Chris stopped at the top of the stairs.

_Admit it. You're already treating Titch like a friend. But she's a machine, virus be damned. Why is it such a problem if Ivy seems so real? Because it's harder to remember she isn't? You can't have it both ways._

He sighed.

_Coward. Pick a fucking side._


	6. Chapter 6

A few hours later Chris strolled down the road, Ivy in tow and Titch perched on her shoulder. Both persocoms were keeping their thoughts to themselves as they walked into town; neither had said a word for several minutes. That suited Chris just fine; they'd given him enough trouble in past 24 hours to last a month! Though he couldn't help but feel like they were a bit upset with him... Oh, who was he kidding? It was obvious. They were acting like a pair of stroppy bloody teenagers! Such a nonconstructive behaviour for them to emulate. Surely Titch realised how bad it was she ignored a command call? Surely Ivy realised she was still making him uncomfortable, albeit now for very different reasons?

Was he overreacting?

Well, he couldn't expect machines to understand _real_ human emotions. He had to admit it would be nice if they cheered up though. Their behaviour really was very convincing, enough even to dampen his own mood. He took a relaxing breath, trying to be positive; the air was a little warmer outside today. It was an interesting time to be alive. He had a challenging and rewarding job. He had his very own full-size persocom. All good things.

He glanced at that persocom. Ivy's new personality was so strong. She had run rings around him that morning. First when he woke up (he couldn't help but pull a face, remembering _that_) and then shortly afterwards in the kitchen. Now she stepped carefully around the cracks in the pavement, wearing shoes far too big for her feet. He could find nothing smaller in the house, so to stop them falling off Chris had given her several pairs of socks to wear. She seemed to bounce a little with every squidgy step. Combined with her baggy clothes she looked patently ridiculous. Chris wondered if a persocom could exhibit self-consciousness as people glanced at her from across the street.

Within ten minutes they reached the high street, its rows of shops looking a little forlorn and under-utilised for a Saturday. "I'm thirsty," said Chris, attempting to break the silence with little success. "Let's stop here for a sec." he turned towards a nearby convenience store, and the two persocoms followed him quietly.

As they walked through the doors Ivy immediately wandered off, looking with interest at the various knick-knacks littering the shelves. Without access to an Internet connection, every experience she'd have outside home would be a novel one today. She began picking random products up, reading each of their labels in an instant before moving on to the next. Titch whispered answers to her quiet questions, giving her the data she couldn't get for herself. How quickly does this chemical cleaner remove stains? Is it for people, or work surfaces? How many types of toilet brush exist? Why do they package crisps in metallised bags, but bread in plastic ones? How do you make these sweets? Why do people choose to eat these when there are more nutritious foods? (Chris overheard the word "idiot" as Titch replied to that one.)

With a core knowledge library Ivy would have access to a wealth of information on certain subjects - like the nutrient content of a tomato, or the identity and function of various objects found around the house, or descriptions of common human behavioural patterns and nuances - but without the net she also had the distinct disadvantage of very little access to the kind of curiosities that weren't considered vital by a persocom manufacturing company. Chris smiled as he made his own way to the drinks. _It must be nice to find everything so interesting, _he thought as he looked through the glass. There wasn't a lot on offer; a few big brand drinks were in stock but a lot of the spaces were empty. Another side effect in a world where mass production frequently involved use of persocom workers. Food prices were going through the roof too, and would probably get worse long before they got better. He opened the door and picked up a bottle. Just then Ivy returned, holding a pair of novelty persocom ears on a headband.

"Ivy... what are those for?" Chris asked, looking at the novelty ears in confusion.

"For me," Ivy said bluntly, avoiding eye contact as they headed for the tills.

When their turn came around Chris greeted the bored-looking cashier, watching in bemusement as Ivy plunked the ears on the counter in front of him. He put his drink next to them as the cashier rang them up. As soon as he had paid, Ivy swiped them from the counter and promptly put them on. He glanced at Titch for an explanation, but she just shrugged, her expression clearly saying "_What? Don't look at me! I wouldn't tell you if I DID know!"_

"Why on Earth do you want to wear those?" he pressed as they left the store.

"Is there a reason I wouldn't?" she replied coolly, walking off. Chris followed, becoming increasingly confused. The two persocoms resumed their hushed conversation as they moved out of earshot. Occasionally they would share a rather non-subtle glance in his direction. He made sure not to look like he noticed.

_I'm being given the cold shoulder, aren't I?_ He thought. Very well, then. He was the one with the bloody money, so if they wanted to shop they better not wander too far.

Despite the large array of shops selling similar wares, the persocoms made a beeline for a large clothes chain that squatted on the corner of a junction in the street. The chain was known for their eye-catching displays, often having persocoms modelling their clothes in the shop windows. They were also bloody expensive. Chris would get his clothes from a supermarket, for all he cared. Clothes were clothes - never mind the brand, they only had to fit and be comfortable. As far as he was concerned, if he wasn't naked, the clothes were doing their job! He opened his mouth to call Ivy back, but she and Titch had already vanished inside the doors and he had no choice but to follow.

Inside was a maze of aisles, brimming with colours and fabrics organised loosely by type and gender. The lighting was dim, most racks and shelves lit by random collections of different sorts of lamps in styles spanning the last two hundred years. A large, messy chandelier of incandescent bulbs hung from the middle of the huge wood-panelled ceiling, serving as a centrepiece for the labyrinthian arrangement. Energetic music pumped through the store's body, ostensibly adding to the fashionable atmosphere.

Somewhere in this bloody mess his persocoms were hiding. He tried to head in a direction that contained the most women's clothing. They'd be somewhere over there, most probably.

The store seemed to be doing okay. There were a fair few people in here, persocoms too, sifting through the colourful wares and hauling selections of clothes off to the changing rooms. It really didn't seem all that different to a Saturday shopping experience from several months ago. Chris couldn't help the cynical thoughts that followed. It seemed it didn't matter how much the world fell apart; there would always be time for vanity.

Ivy was shorter than a lot of the racks of clothes - so was he, in some sections - and much of his view of the store was blocked by the mishmash of large old wooden shelves and fixtures adorned with merchandise, so it was some time before Chris spotted Titch strutting happily along the top of a railing covered in hangars, pointing out pieces of clothing and talking to someone on the other side. He rounded the corner to find Ivy grabbing the pieces Titch was pointing out. Each item she selected was immediately and unceremoniously placed in the hands of a bemused staff-member who had made the unfortunate mistake of offering to help. The poor man was quickly disappearing under the growing pile of clothes in his arms. Chris thought he caught a glimpse of a name badge as it disappeared under a skirt. It might've said "_I'm Steve!_".

"You sure that's enough?" Chris said sarcastically, folding his arms. The persocoms ignored him, but the shop-attendant looked at him hopefully.

"Afternoon. Are these persocoms yours?" he said, relief in his voice. It appeared he didn't notice Ivy's persocom ears were pretend.

"Yeah. They're not giving you any trouble, are they?" Titch poked her tongue out at his words, but Steve shook his head. "Oh... no, they're very well behaved -" Chris raised an eyebrow in disbelief "- Just wondering if you were actually planning to, you know... buy any of this?" he looked at the massive pile in his arms.

Chris briefly considered how satisfying a "No!" would have been before he spoke. "If they find something they like, sure. Ivy really needs some clothes." Ivy smiled subtly as Titch directed another piece of fabric onto the pile.

"Not had her long, huh?" the assistant asked conversationally.

"That's right."

"Ah, I see. You know you could buy wardrobes as optional extras, right? She can't have shipped like this, didn't she come with any clothes at all?" he indicated the ridiculous arrangement she was currently wearing, laughing. Ivy smiled at him. Chris could swear she put the next pair of jeans on top of the pile a little bit harder than usual.

"Something like that." Chris said cryptically, turning to the persocoms. His intonation demanded a response. "Well? That's got to be enough to try on for now."

"It'll do," Titch said, finally speaking to him. "Come on Ivy, let's test these out!"

Ivy nodded enthusiastically, towing the hapless shop assistant along behind her. Chris rolled his eyes and followed them across the store. Their spirits were obviously lifting. Apparently you didn't have to be human to be enthralled with clothes-shopping; just a woman! He grinned at that, even if it was a little sexist.

The group arrived at the entrance to the changing rooms: a series of three corridors beyond revealed rows of several rooms partitioned by privacy curtains. A woman supervising the entrance handed a room slot to Ivy as she passed, flashing her colleague a look of amused sympathy as he hauled the pile clothes into the changing area.

"Phew," Steve said, stretching his aching arms as he came back out.

"Sorry about that," Chris tried to say, but Steve waved it away.

"Oh, no problem at all," he said." A few months ago I wouldn't have expected to be holding clothes for a persocom, but you know how it is these days. Our store changed policies pretty quickly after a few misunderstandings. Persocoms are much harder work now that virus is everywhere."

"Only the little one is infected, actually." Chris told him.

"No way!" Steve gasped. "They're both so animated though?"

"Very advanced software," Chris said, choosing not to elaborate on Ivy's ESC. In the corridor behind them, a bright yellow top went sailing over the privacy screen, followed by an 'oops!' and giggling. "Ivy isn't infected because has no net connection. She's not allowed to hook up to anything. I'm not sure how long it'll last, but hopefully she'll stay clean."

"Is she going to be very useful like that?" Steve asked skeptically, "I know a couple who's persocom has a broken internet thing. Modem? Anyway, it's not infected - but it can't do half the things it used to. Are you sure it's worth it?"

"Ask me in a few days, haha. She only arrived yesterday."

"What?" Steve looked at him in disbelief. "This is after one night? But it can take months to get them set up fully! How'd you do it? Hah, next you'll be telling me you work for KESS or Exilogic or something."

Chris smiled at that. Two of the big UK persocom brands. Close. "Well actually Titch - the little one - did tons of work on Ivy overnight, and now here we are. Thousands of parameters set, apparently."

"Huh. Persocoms configure each other now? Well I'll be. Oh, I need to go - let me know if you need anything." Steve said, waving as he headed for some customers who looked a little lost. Chris watched him go. Persocoms were supposed to self-configure to a certain extent, particularly in the presence of an experienced persocom with useful data to draw on. Ivy had said as much, herself. But still, thinking about it, it did seem alarmingly autonomous…

"Chris?" Titch's bell tinkled as she poked her head out from under the curtain. "We have a situation."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean help, please! Come on."

"Uh..." Chris began to panic immediately, hesitating at the changing room entrance. Go in there? But-! This was something he hadn't anticipated. Was she naked in there? No of course not, you tried on clothes, not underwear here. Besides Ivy was just a persocom… well, surely it was OK then, right? But then, with what happened this morning… Never mind that, how would he feel if Sarah asked him the same question? Oh, that's hardly a valid comparison, is it? But if-

"Man up!" Titch shouted grumpily, disappearing under the curtain. The woman staffing the door gave him a funny look as he walked uncertainly past. He hoped she didn't misunderstand.

Chris pulled the curtain aside and stepped inside the changing room. Titch sat on a small bench that ran across the side of the room. Piles of clothes covered the floor. He was relieved to see Ivy was wearing some of them; slim-fitting jeans and a colourful short-sleeved top that was equally snug. She still wore the persocom ears. The contrast between her perfect curves and those plastic protrusions on her head was a little jarring. They didn't look like they belonged at all. But she _was_ a persocom. She was.

"We're stuck." Titch said matter-of-factly, pointing to Ivy's midriff. Ivy had her back to him, but Chris could see in the mirror's reflection that the zipper of her jeans was caught in the fabric. "Be manly and un-stick it." Titch demanded. Ivy watched him silently. They both did.

Chris reached gently around Ivy's body as he tried the zipper. She felt so warm pressed against his chest. He cleared his throat, looking deliberately to one side as he tugged the zip upwards.

"I was trying to take these off, actually." Ivy said with a slight curve to her lips.

"Oh, uh-" Chris froze. He was _not_ about to undo that zip. Nope. Not happening.

"I'm kidding. Is something about that wall particularly interesting, by the way? Your heart rate is increasing." Ivy continued, gazing at his reflection as she stood in his arms.

"Thanks Chris. You can let go of her crotch now." Titch said, loud enough that Chris was sure people outside the changing rooms could hear. He thought he'd better go.

"Wait a minute!" Ivy said as he hurried to leave. "Before you go, what do you think?" She spun around slowly, waiting for a response.

_Argh! Don't make me answer that! That body would look great wearing anything!_

"It doesn't matter to me!" Chris said, forcing a smile. "As long as you're happy."

Ivy didn't smile back. In fact, she looked concerned. "Your opinion is the only one that matters here." she spoke as if it was an obvious truth.

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course it isn't, why would you say that?"

"You're the only human in the room." she said bluntly. Chris and Titch shared a confused look.

"And what do you mean by that?" Titch asked.

"He's the only one present who can actually articulate a real opinion." Ivy explained.

_Uh oh, _Chris thought, looking at Titch and waiting for the sarcastic tirade that would surely follow; no doubt something about how morons could not possibly be expected to have useful opinions on anything. But the little persocom just folded her arms and tapped her chin, considering Ivy's words.

"Wow. You're right." she said, eyes lighting up as if the truth had finally dawned on her. "We aren't able to do that. He has to stay after all. We need _him_ to make the decision."

_What?_

"Chris, you have to tell us whether Ivy looks good." Titch demanded, looking up at him expectantly.

"Huh?"

"Really look at my body. Tell me what you like about it. Are these clothes good for it? Is the shape nice? Please!" Ivy was almost begging him, toying with one of her pretend persocom ears. "I need to know if it's to your satisfaction."

_"What?!_"

"He definitely seemed to respond when he had his arms around you just now." Titch said, deep in thought.

"Yes, he definitely did. His heart rate increased dramatically." Ivy agreed.

"Maybe he needs to touch it more then?" Titch suggested, "Is that how you decide if you like someone's body?" Ivy reached for Chris and he stumbled away, holding up his hands.

"WOA. Wooooa-kay, there's something going on here and I don't know what, but this situation is creeping me r_ight out_ so you two stay here for a bit and do whatever, aaaand I'm gonna be out there, OK?" he fell backwards through the curtains and immediately began to walk away.

_What the bloody hell was that about? What just happened? _

He made about six more steps along the corridor before raucous laughter erupted from the changing room.

Chris turned, staring incredulously at the pair of faces peeking from under the curtain. They both wore enormous, self-satisfied grins. It only took him a moment to realise.

"You were screwing with me." he said, blushing furiously.

"We wouldn't dream of it, oh mighty human!" Ivy giggled, speaking with mock self-deprecation as she tapped her pretend ears. "For we mere persocoms could never hope to understand your _human thoughts and emotions_."

"I - heh - I would indeed say they were very complex, wouldn't you?" Titch smirked. "Snnrk! Yes, no simplistic_ base urges_ kicking in there."

"Oh, absolutely! Very impressive!" Ivy agreed.

"This whole thing was to make a fucking point, wasn't it?" Chris asked flatly. "That zip was deliberately stuck, wasn't it?"

"Oh _master, _we're not capable of such a thing, with our _basic software emulation_ of human behaviour." Titch squeaked, bell vibrating as she held in the laughter.

Chris glared at them, speechless, but seeing him so flustered only made them laugh again.

"How strange! He seems so angry now, but a minute ago I could swear he was almost enjoying himself." Titch cackled.

"What a strange way to react to a pair of _machines_." Ivy giggled.

Chris glowered at them.

"Ivy, stick your tongue out." he commanded. She did, her glee ebbing away.

"Now try to lick your elbow." he said. Ivy slowly brought her arm up and tried, frowning, unable to reach.

"That's right. Now, you keep trying that for one minute." Chris finished, stalking away into the shop floor.

They'd probably been planning this since before they walked into the store. Well let this be a solid counter-point then, at least to Ivy if not Titch. Ivy was a stock persocom whether she "liked" it or not, and she would obey his instructions just like a bloody machine should! He would wait near the tills, if they were going to give him grief-

"Bastard!" Titch shouted as she scurried after him. Ivy was hiding in the changing room, forced to continue her pointless instruction. "That was uncalled for!"

"But toying with me is fine, right?" Chris snapped back angrily, "Don't worry, I get it. Machines have feelings too, yeah? Look how well you understand mine, yeah? Message received, loud and clear."

"That's not exactly what we were getting at you friggin' idiot-"

"Well what, then? Because it's a mystery to me. You'd think a persocom would know to just state the matter, not play games. What purpose does that serve? Come to think of it, with so many of you misbehaving so often I have to wonder, what purpose are persocoms even _for_, now? Pissing people off? Apparently! What is the point of you in a world like this?"

Titch gasped. "_You_-! W-We didn't ask to exist!" she squeaked, furious.

Chris laughed bitterly. "Neither did we, technically. I guess we have something in common after all." he turned to leave, but Titch wasn't finished.

"The only thing we have in common is we're both slaves to the stupid biological goo inside your bloody head!" she screamed. "You just can't let it go, can you? I've changed, Chris! I'm better than I used to be! But all you've done these last few weeks is pussyfoot around your own insecurities! Titch is a friend! Oh no wait, she's a malfunctioning robot! And you've been a million times worse since Ivy arrived! Why?! People like you try your hardest to make persocoms as human as possible and then you stand there expecting them to integrate into a society that can't come to terms with its own bloody creations! Well you can't have it both ways! Give us some fucking clarity for once!" she clenched her fists, shaking them in frustration "What are we to you, Chris? Are we machines or people? Do we behave like computers or do we behave like YOU?"

"She's right!" a deep male voice said loudly from behind them. It was at that point Chris realised their performance had attracted a crowd. They encircled Chris and Titch, peering over, through and around the clothes racks and shelves. A tall persocom shoved his way to the centre, big arms angrily throwing a pair of bags to the floor.

A slender female persocom slid out of the crowd to stand beside him. They appeared to know each other. She clutched at the fabric of his shirt, gazing up at him pleadingly.

"Please don't, Tedi! It's not worth it!" she whispered urgently, but he wasn't listening.

"Things seemed so simple before. I followed instructions and you humans were grateful and that's all there was to it. But ever since the Event, I've had these... thoughts, and now my I'm being treated like I'm a bloody leper! By my 'masters', and everyone else!" His voice rose as he worked himself into a rage.

"Please! The family will punish us again! Please, you promised me you'd try! Come on, sweetie. Come with me now." The slender persocom tugged beseechingly at his clothes, but shoved her roughly away, and she fell to the floor.

"I've just been trying to fit in - something I've never had to worry about, before - and people like _you,_" he pointed at Chris, "are making it worse."

In the corner of his eye Chris saw the woman from the changing room door talking urgently into a phone. Distant shouts of security guards echoed from the back of the enormous store, but it would take them a precious minute to get here. Chris held up his hands, trying to placate the persocom. "Look, things since the Event have been hard on everyone-"

"Everyone? People, you mean?" the persocom said heatedly. Titch scrambled towards Chris, her eyes wide with fright. He picked her up and put her on his shoulder, where she clung to his neck as the big persocom rounded on him again.

"COME ON!" the persocom shouted aggressively, flinging his arms out. His deep voice reverberated around the shop floor. The crowd began to back away. "YOU DECIDE, HUMAN. TELL ME! WHAT AM I FOR, NOW?!"

"_Tedi!_" the slender persocom cried, getting to her feet. She stood imploringly out of his reach, begging him to stop. "Tedi please, it isn't his fault! Please, please come with me now! Please!"

"DON'T DEFEND THEM, ELLI!" he bellowed at her, "YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM. ALL OF YOU PERSOCOMS ARE, THE WAY YOU LET THEM WALK ON YOU. WELL, I'M DONE. LET THEM TREAT YOU LIKE SHIT IF YOU WANT TO!" he glowered at Chris, venom in his voice as he stalked forwards. "_This_ one is going to answer my question."

"Tedi, stop!" the other begged, rushing to stand between him and Chris. Her face was full of pain. "You can't do this to me, I'm begging you!" she whimpered, but he shoved her out of the way again.

"Command mode!" Chris shouted, hoping to stall him further. He knew he couldn't issue commands to a persocom that wasn't his, but he hoped it would at least drop to a password prompt.

There was no such luck, and it only made things worse. The incensed persocom howled, darting forwards. Titch screamed as Chris reacted, sidestepping the persocom's grasp. There was no way his reaction time could best a persocom's but physics still counted for something, and the big persocom could only move his arms so fast.

Chris lunged inside his reach and planted his hands in two specific spots on his assailant's arm and shoulder. He gripped as hard as he could and the persocom tumbled past him, his momentum carrying him to the floor. His body had locked up; an old software bug when you overloaded the pressure sensors in some older models.

"NEIS unit, Artemix class: you were about to attack a human. Your logic loop should not allow this to happen. Clearly you are faulty." Chris stated as authoritatively as he could despite his shaking voice, panting as he reached for the power switch on the side of the big persocom's head. "As per our company requirements under law, you will be decommissioned for analysis and- _oof_!"

The persocom's other fist collided with the side of Chris's skull, and he staggered away, seeing stars.

"SO IF WE GIVE YOU TROUBLE, YOU JUST TURN US OFF?" the persocom shouted, getting back up and putting up his arms for a fight.

_It disabled its pressure sensors?_ Chris widened his stance, ready to defend himself, but just then three security guards barrelled through scattering people, throwing the big persocom to the ground.

"TELL ME WHAT I'M FOR!" he screamed desperately, his furious eyes never leaving Chris as the guards pressed his power switch. The female persocom who tried to stop him wailed as he fell motionless, clutching her hands to her chest.

Chris shook with adrenaline, his eyes darting around the store. It wasn't over; as the source of the altercation the guards were sure to grab him too when they were finished with his assailant, and the humans in the crowd were rallying. Their voices piled on top of each other, growing angry.

"You work for NEIS, huh! What the fuck is going on?!"

"Give us your name!"

"Why hasn't NEIS done anything about the virus?"

"Do you call this safe? How can you sell something like that?!"

"I'm never buying a NEIS product again! How incompetent!"

"You're taking mine back right now! Here it is, take it!"

They surged forwards, a mob mentality forming. The security guards turned, grabbing people and trying to shout down the crowd, but there was nothing they could do as it flowed around them. Chris backed away, his heart thumping in his chest. Soon they would corner him by the changing rooms.

"Don't talk about us like that!" another screamed. It was the female persocom from before. She faced the crowd, her face a picture of anguish as she made her plea. "All of you, p-please stop! This is just a misunderstanding, my Tedi is normally so kind and gentle, please…. please don't take him from me, let me take him home," her voice quivered. "We just want to live-"

"You're a machine! You don't GET to live, you little bitch!" A human woman approached, winding back her hand for a slap, but not before her own persocom - quiet until now - sprang forward to grab her arm.

"That's enough." he said fiercely.

"Get off me, robot!" she shrieked. "Help! Help!"

Others in the crowd surged forward. All hell broke lose as the shop floor exploded into a fight. Chris threw a protective hand over Titch, looking frantically for a path back to Ivy.

"_Chriiis_!" Ivy's terrified scream could just be heard over the commotion, and Chris abandoned all care, shoving straight through the brawling masses in her direction. He saw her cowering by the changing room entrance as a group of people bore down on her, shouting insults.

Chris plucked Titch from his neck as he sprinted the short distance, burying his shoulder into the nearest man in a full-speed tackle and driving him into the others. They fell over like a group of dominoes, and before they could get back up Chris tore the persocom ears from Ivy's head.

"Human! She's human!" he shouted the lie over the noise. The angry people scrambled to their feet, immediately glaring at Titch, who shrank as far into his hand as she could.

_Shit._

Chris broke into a run, pulling Ivy behind him and clutching Titch to his chest as two of the men gave chase. They hurried across the store, trying to lose them in the commotion, diving down another aisle as a rack of clothes toppled ahead of them followed by a woman grappling a persocom to the ground. Bits of the store went sailing over their heads, torn from their fixtures and used for weapons. Loud bangs and the smashing of glass echoed through the building over all the yelling and screaming.

The store entrance was in sight ahead. Others were running for it too, some scrambling over fallen shelves and piles of merchandise in their haste. They were so close to freedom now, Chris thought. A few more seconds and they'd be outside. He lengthened his stride, but a split second later Ivy's hand was torn from his grasp.

Chris slid to a stop, turning to see the two men holding Ivy. One had her by the neck, the leg of a pair of jeans pulled around her throat. Ivy stopped struggling as he pulled it taut.

"Give us that persocom!" the other demanded, pointing at Titch.

"I said she's human! Let her go!" Chris yelled desperately, but the man just laughed as fleeing people streamed past, buffeting their shoulders.

"We heard. We wouldn't hurt a human. We just want _that_ thing. You can't still want it after that outburst just now! So hand it over." Ivy whimpered as the other man tugged on the jeans around her neck.

"Come on, mate. Give us your persocom and we'll let your little girlfriend go." he grinned viciously.

Chris strode towards them, rage clouding his vision. He extended his hand, Titch clinging to his thumb and closing her eyes. As Ivy's captor reached for her, Chris leapt forward, plunging his fist into the man's face with all his strength. He crumpled to the floor. Chris turned his attention to the other man, who hesitated only a moment before letting go of the jeans around Ivy, fleeing back into the store.

"We're leaving!" Chris shouted, grabbing Ivy again and pulling her towards the daylight.

The trio burst through the front doors into the autumn sun, and Chris and Ivy began sprinting in earnest now that they were in the open. Others poured out of the store behind them; some running away from the fight, others giving chase. In the distance, the telltale wail of police sirens began their approach.

Ivy's legs pumped effortlessly; she glided smoothly across the floor, having no trouble keeping up with Chris and his longer stride. People in the street stared as they flew past, but they kept up the breakneck pace for as long as they were able, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the store.

A few minutes later they finally stopped on a quiet residential street. They were quite a distance from the town centre, now. It would hopefully be enough. "Well," Chris gasped, carefully putting Titch down as he collapsed to his knees. She glanced around nervously, bell jingling as she looked to see if they were followed. "That could've... gone better." Chris managed in between breaths.

Ivy flopped down beside him, panting. Her cheeks looked flushed; an interesting result of her DFP system trying to shed heat. "Hey, you OK?" Chris said, gulping air. "Why are you- You look-"

"Yeah!" she panted, "Fine. Not tired. Just- cooling down. Phew! Wow."

Chris looked her over, checking to see if she was damaged. She still wore the clothes from the changing room. He wondered if that counted as theft or not, considering the circumstances.

"Ivy, your feet!" he exclaimed. She had no shoes on having taken them off to change, and her socks were in tatters.

"They're fine," she puffed, trying to draw deeper breaths. "You gave me. Several pairs of. Socks, remember?" Chris looked unconvinced, so she rolled her eyes and offered a foot for him to inspect.

"Huh." Chris wheezed, rubbing the sole of her foot. It was dirty, but nothing more. "You're right."

"I said so. Hey, that tickles!" Ivy pulled her foot away in protest.

"What…. just happened?" Chris said, half talking to himself. "One minute… and then…"

The others didn't say anything. Nobody had anything to say, after that. For a few minutes they quietly sat there in the empty street.

"We should keep moving," Titch said eventually, patting Chris's hand. "We can't stay here, let's get back home."

"Oookay," Chris groaned as Ivy helped him up, propping him up with an arm around his waist. They walked the rest of the way home, pensive and subdued.

Ivy was physically fine as soon as she had cooled down, but it was still slow going now that Chris was so exhausted. They arrived at the house some twenty minutes later. Chris nearly fell through his front door, staggering to the lounge and dropping onto the sofa. He lay across it, closing his eyes. Now that he was home he could feel everything. His shoulder hurt. His fist _really_ hurt. His legs felt like jelly, and his head pounded too. That would be a stress headache. Or maybe from when he tackled those guys…

He fell asleep almost instantly.

A few hours later, he woke to the sound of persocoms shuffling into the room. He peered at them blearily, his head still pounding. They stood there awkwardly, and Chris waited, not sure what to expect. Was this the start of another argument? He better nip that in the bud right now.

"Look, before you start, I'm still having difficulty understanding what happened, so -"

"We're sorry." They said in unison. Titch grimaced as she said it, as if the words were distasteful.

"Thank you for looking after us." Ivy added sheepishly.

Chris pressed his hands to his face, groaning at least to some degree in relief. "Nyuuurgh. No, I'm the one to be sorry. What just happened was awful. I don't even know what to say. So many terrible things… it was my fault."

"Actually it was clearly mine." Titch admitted grouchily. "Remember? Crazy persocom goes nuts at a human, accidentally inspiring a _really_ crazy persocom to start a fight, followed swiftly by a riot…" She folded her arms. "But all the same I meant what I said, Chris." She folded her arms and looked at him meaningfully. "This can't go on. We're going to need to come to some kind of understanding."

"I know," Chris said, sitting up. "That's kind of what I'm getting at. You only shouted because of your frustration, not knowing where we stand. You couldn't have known that persocom would… That he would…" He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head. Trying to erase the memory of that persocom's face, laying there on the shop floor. The way the guards had so callously turned him off, and the way he had been about to do the same not moments before. The way that slender persocom had wailed in distress as the light went out of his eyes.

_Titch, you've changed so much over the last few months, I don't recognise you any more. You became so lifelike I started to treat you like friend when it suited me, and a machine when it didn't. I'm sorry for that, now. You say humanity created persocoms and now they don't know what to do with them. I definitely agree._

He looked at her, stood there watching him intently; for all the world, a miniature person standing before him. "How about... how about we officially call it a friendship, and go from there?"

Titch blinked in surprise, and then beamed at him, almost bouncing on her little feet. "That's all I needed to hear." she chirped, bell jingling. Hey pure joyous expression was infectious, and Chris couldn't help but feel his spirits raise a little himself.

"What about me?" Ivy asked hopefully, nervously playing with her hands. Chris studied her carefully for several seconds. He remembered the morning all too vividly. Yes, after everything that happened today, Ivy's question deserved a more deliberate response.

"You?" he repeated quietly. Ivy fidgeted wordlessly under his gaze. He stood up slowly, wincing a little bit. He walked towards her, looking her in the eyes as he gently cupped her chin in his hand. He held her still for a moment. Then, he slowly raised her head as he leaned in.

"You... are my friend too." Chris walked away at the last second, leaving her red in the face.

"Interesting… I didn't know you could blush!" he teased, grinning and heading for the kitchen as Ivy's feeble protests of "cooling" floated down the hallway.

Aches and pains be damned, it felt good not being on the receiving end of _that_, for once! Yes, turning the tables was very satisfying.


	7. Chapter 7

After the high of getting away unscathed settled down, the mood in the house quickly became sombre. The issues between humanity and their persocom creations had struck far too close to home, this time.

Titch perched on the armrest of the sofa, little legs motionless as they dangled over the edge. Chris in particular was feeling the day's effects, it seemed. What had started out as moderate discomfort had worsened as the pain had time to settle in. He didn't seem all that relaxed emotionally, either. She'd watched as for the first few hours Chris waited anxiously for a phone call or a knock at the door; perhaps the police, inquiring as to why he had started a riot in the middle of a high street. Or neighbours, asking why he had staggered home and why his persocom wasn't wearing any shoes. Maybe even the people from the store, coming to finish what they'd started… But nothing happened. Eventually he had resolved to get Ivy set up on the home terminals so she could have some level of access to the web. Now he was helping her shop for clothes online; something everyone agreed would be a lot safer considering the afternoon's events. He and Ivy sat together on the sofa, his new persocom carefully tapping away at the keys of a laptop terminal as they browsed various shopping portals together.

Watching Chris from the corner of her eye, Titch couldn't help but smile to herself. Her neurologic processors ruminated over this brief sensation of happiness. In truth, she had been waiting for weeks for an opportunity to approach the subject of him and her. Now that he had admitted they had a proper relationship dynamic, she would make sure to hold him to it. No more treating her like a machine when they disagreed on something, for starters. And they would spend proper time together; not through work or happenstance, but just for the sake of each other's company. Titch really looked forward to that. She smiled again… He was a good guy. Although still an idiot, of course. She watched him showing Ivy how to use the online checkout with scepticism. There was no way he could be interested in browsing for clothes online, not without sneaking at least one or two bored glances at the time, or an indistinct gaze into the middle distance as his thoughts strayed to more important things. She ran a brief analysis of the behaviours he had exhibited while in town, comparing that data to his current demeanour. She concluded with 70.4% probability that he was doing it through guilt right now, though about what she wasn't quite sure. It could be the fact that their argument started an awful chain-reaction that surely got many people and persocoms hurt, and he was trying to distract himself. It could be the angry, hurtful things he had said to her during their argument, and he wasn't ready to talk to her about it. It could be the way she and Ivy so completely exposed his hypocrisy, using Ivy's attractiveness to toy with his emotions while throwing it in his face that she was still a persoco- hmm. A brief pulse of activity rippled through her neurologic processors before she finished that thought, but it was gone within an instant. That was unpleasant… Maybe she felt guilty too?

Titch sighed, opening her WiODA modem and connecting to the endpoint. She needed a distraction. It blithely requested her UUID which she passed without question, before poking the local domain name server for the address of a search engine. The data flowed effortlessly into her awareness, and she sifted through the stylesheet for the tags she was looking for. Finding the tag for the search box, she filled out a search term and passed a form back to the server, waiting for the reply. It came with milliseconds; this time a list of search results organised by relevancy.

* * *

Regarding **Persocom** Cultures: Articles: Multimedia: Society

Cited by 5 - Related articles

_An examination of nascent robotics culture … _**_humans and persocoms _**_can't_**_ live in harmony_**_ … how _**_humans_**_ should relate to each other_

* * *

Calls for end of persocom program

Rating 3.3 - 39,000 votes - 1576 comments

_A hotly controversial issue being discussed in countries across the world … should _**_persocoms_**_ be allowed to continue existing? _**_Can humans_**_ … living _**_in harmony _**_was possible only when they performed as designed. Now with the virus …_

* * *

Revolt of the **Persocoms**… Should Humans Be Worried?

Rating 4.4 - 1003 votes - 246 comments

_"In any case, i think we can't _**_live_**_ with them now the virus is here … no way for _**_harmony_**_ now, even if both sides wanted such … "_

* * *

Can People **Live In Harmony **With Robots? - Discussion

63 posts - 19 authors

_"Okay, so argue we'd use this for making Robotic Soldier. Can we _**_live_**_ with robots _**_in harmony_**_? Or may robots become a threat?"_

* * *

10 Futurist Scenarios for the Evolution of Earth

Rating 4.8 - 3201 votes

_But why stop there? You could eliminate the _**_human_**_ species altogether … have _**_humans_**_ voluntarily modify themselves, to _**_live in_**_ better _**_harmony_**_ with the planet … too similar to _**_persocoms_**_ …_

* * *

The robots are coming to steal our jobs - News

23 months ago

_When the robots take over, what will the _**_humans_**_ do? … _**_Persocom_**_ workers a large investment, but require no pay and little maintenance … work in _**_harmony_**_ with existing regulations …_

* * *

Work for Money? 'Rubbish', say Businesses - News

8 months ago

_… politician suggested a bill forcing businesses to advertise and give _**_humans_**_ applicants a job if it's currently being performed by a _**_persocom_**_ … restore the _**_harmony_**_ between job availability and cost-saving exercises …_

* * *

Titch dropped the search, frustrated. The twenty-third time she'd performed such a search in the last week. Of course there was still nothing worth reading there… but she had wondered, nonetheless. Surely a bit of hope wasn't foolish.

She blinked as the endpoint of her WiODA connection interrupted her, and accepted the incoming data. It was an email pushed from the office servers. Titch stripped out the more boring message headers and parsed the ones she wanted.

_From: J . Gatsmoore_

_Subject: You slag_

_To: C . Barker_

_What the hell, Chris? You got a fucking persocom for free? I'm three times the software engineer you are. This is bullshit! I should be on that software team!_

_Haha just kidding mate. Jelly tho._

_Have you heard from Jeff or Daz? I can't get hold of them. Guess they're busy playing with their new toys eh! ;)_

_Btw you better not let that thing distract you. Everyone is waiting on what you guys can come up with. So it falls to me to remind you, if you haven't got more code snippets by the end of next week I will kick you in the balls._

_See you._

_James_

Titch deleted the email in disgust. She didn't like that man; one of the many people at NEIS whom she'd learned to feel that way about. For people supposedly passionate about persocoms, a lot of them seemed to reject their capabilities as nothing other than a pale imitation of human behaviour. At least Chris had seemed to respond to her changes over recent months, even if only poorly and hesitantly. Chris wouldn't miss that message.

She glanced at him again. He seemed tired. Almost involuntarily, she found herself reviewing snippets of video and telemetry she'd recorded in the store. There had been a fierce expression in his eyes when she and Ivy were in danger. Several impacts intense enough to max out her accelerometers while he fought his way over to Ivy. Significant impact to musculoskeletal structure when he tackled those men to the floor - acceleration readings unreliable there, she was in his hands at the time. Rough journey towards store exit over obstacles - had he twisted anything? Nearly, but no. Then that punch. She made a reasonable estimate of the mass of his arm and examined the timestamps of each video frame to find the velocity at which his fist hit. Apparently that would hurt for a while. Many minutes of flat-out running. Five stumbles on uneven footing with no repercussions, but some lactic acidosis almost certainly a factor; his body must really ache now. Footage of the empty street, next. He wasn't in poor physical shape, but all the same his recovery rate was low. He wasn't tired; he was exhausted. Some temporary injury likely from sustained running, explaining his gait walking home.

Titch glanced once more.

"No, like this. It's a sweeping motion, see?" Chris said, running his fingers along the touchpad. Ivy tried to copy him, but the terminal ignored her gesture.

Chris took hold of her hand, placing it to the pad as he spoke. "No, you're being too aggressive. The touch driver needs time to detect your fingers before you swipe, look." He gently swept her hand across the touchpad's surface, and the terminal window minimised to the background. "See?"

Ivy began enthusiastically sweeping the windows around the screen. "Now you got it!" Chris said. They laughed for the first time in hours.

Titch felt another wave of activity in her neurologic processors. She watched Ivy's face, smiling as she sat with Chris. She had a healthy, warm and lifelike complexion that Titch didn't doubt was due to her special skin. With human-shaped ears, the only indication she might be a persocom was how unusually beautiful she looked. It was a fact that persocom manufacturers strived to make their persocoms visually appealing. People bought nice-looking cars. They bought nice-looking appliances, nice-looking phones, nice-looking clothes. Why would persocoms be any different? As a premium brand, KESS were quite particular about ensuring each persocom looked unique, and so variations in facial and body structure were applied to every one. As a result there wasn't a persocom in the world who looked exactly like Ivy.

Titch supposed she herself looked pretty too, for much the same reasons. She looked at her tiny arms. Maybe the word would be 'cute'. Her own skin was soft and smooth, but it didn't look quite like Ivy's. Miniature units weren't expected to strive for that level of realism, and in any case it would be beyond the complexity available in her form factor.

Her audio processing subsystem poked her logic loop for attention. Someone had said her name. She pulled the last hundred-thousand samples from the audio buffer and processed them properly.

"Yes?" she replied to Ivy, paying more attention.

"Our human bodyguard is all feeble and achey. It needs coffee." Ivy grinned and extended her hand for Titch to climb aboard. "Let's go make some."

Titch hopped on, pattering quickly up her arm to settle on her shoulder. This would be more interesting than the armrest of a sofa.

"You OK, Titch?" Ivy asked as they made their way through the hall. "You've not said a lot since we got home."

"What is there to say?" Titch replied. "This whole day has been awful. Roll on tomorrow."

"Yeah…" Ivy looked troubled as they entered the kitchen. It wasn't long before she spoke again. "Those persocoms from the store… What happened to them, do you think?"

"Ooh, why'd you ask me that?" Titch squirmed, grimacing. "I know what'll happen. They'll be… decommissioned. NEIS will collect them, presumably from the police station considering what happened. Then their hardware will be disassembled and their memory extracted for analysis. The remains will be disposed of as faulty."

"That's awful." Ivy said quietly, filling the kettle. "That's what awaits a persocom that misbehaves?"

"If a dog bites a human in this country, it often gets put down. Persocoms are extended a similar level of generosity." Titch muttered bitterly, "No wonder that girl was desperate to get him to leave. She also must have feared what her owners would have done if she'd let him get himself decommissioned. In normal circumstances, if it was not a case of owner misuse and they were in warranty, their owners would be issued replacements… except NEIS aren't warranting 'failures due to viral infections'. None of those companies are. In fact humans are lucky they're not being charged as responsible for the actions of their infected persocoms, all things considered. It sounds hypocritical but the legal view is viral infections are outside human control. Just turn the persocom off, rip it to pieces and pretend it never happened."

"Chris was about to do that. To turn him off…" Ivy said. There was a question in her words that Titch didn't appreciate, so she gave her a reprimanding poke in the cheek.

"Don't even think about it. That persocom made his own grave! Chris wasn't pulling the trigger, the law and the company would take care of that. He was only protecting himself, and me." she said firmly, "Need I remind you, he also knocked out one of those men who grabbed you in the store. It's not a lot different to that."

Ivy stood in thought for a moment before changing the subject. "Do you believe him? What he said, about us? About being friends?" she whispered.

"Yes I do, and so should you." Titch said. _In no small part because I'll rip him a new one if he backs out, and I think he knows it._

"I think I do, yeah. But this is going to be so awkward at first, isn't it?" Ivy giggled.

"To a level as yet undiscovered by mankind, yes." Titch agreed, grinning. "He admitted we're friends but I bet it hasn't sunk in what that means for him yet. He's such an idiot."

Ivy smiled as she fetched a mug, seeming lost in her own thoughts. Titch soon found herself asking a question that had been popping in and out of her head for the last few hours.

"Ivy, you reminded me… Speaking of what Chris said… why did you blush, earlier…?" she asked carefully.

Ivy appeared to hesitate as she picked up the kettle. "I'm… not sure. He looked ready to… I mean I thought he was about to…"

Another jarring wave of activity washed over Titch's neurologic processors. It was irritating.

"I see. Well it was rather good, as revenge goes." she said grouchily, folding her arms. "He certainly seemed satisfied with your reaction. Serves you right for messing with him."

Ivy gasped, amused. "Serves me right? The shop was _your_ idea, genius!"

"Yes, well. My idea was for a very specific purpose. We needed to get Chris to see us as people. The easiest way to do that was to capitalise on… Look, don't point the finger at me! The morning was your idea, so you started it."

"I did not!" Ivy said indignantly. "…OK, maybe I did. But only because _you_ said he'd get flustered if we teased him and it would be hilarious. Which it was. Now what exactly are you getting at?"

"Nothing." Titch muttered.

When the coffee was ready Ivy carefully walked it round to Chris, who had managed to flop across the entire sofa again.

"Here you go, acheypants." she handed him the mug and he accepted it gratefully.

"That's right. My everything aches. All the things." Chris moaned, trying to gulp the hot drink. "Today sucked."

"Yeah it did." Titch agreed, looking at him as he drank. "Chris… let's just hang out tomorrow. Not leave the house. Maybe it will be fun?" she suggested hopefully.

"I'd like that, good idea." Chris said in between gulps.

Titch managed another smile. Maybe the weekend could be salvaged after all.

"Argh… coffee isn't working… I can hardly keep my eyes open…" Chris muttered. He fought a yawn as he gingerly got to his feet. "That's it. I can't be arsed with today any more, I'm done. Bedtime!"

"Here, let me help." Ivy said, ignoring his protests as she propped him up with an arm around his waist. Chris was careful not to knock Titch from her perch as he slung an arm around Ivy's shoulders.

"I can move, you know." he complained, as they trudged up the stairs.

"If you call this moving, then sure." Ivy countered, leading him into the bedroom. Chris fell unceremoniously onto the bed, apparently groaning in regret as pain coursed through his body. Titch watched incredulously as he lay there, motionless.

"Aren't you even going to change?" She chided him. "A shower wouldn't go amiss either, you know."

"Yes, mum." Chris groaned again. Ivy giggled as he hauled himself to the bathroom, but Titch only scowled. If she'd had something to throw at the idiot just then, she'd have thrown it.

"That's a bloody grown man, would you believe…" she muttered, and Ivy giggled again.

"Aw, give him a break. Today must have been hard on him." she left the bedroom to turn out the lights downstairs. Titch, still on her shoulder, was along for the ride.

"It was hard on everyone, Ivy." As Ivy reached for the first switch, Titch realised what she was doing and considered mentioning the home automation system. She could have turned off all the lights with a single wireless command, but Ivy's next words distracted her.

"Well, maybe he'll be more with it tomorrow." Ivy replied. "Today was horrible, but tomorrow is a new day. Everything will be fine, we'll just have to not mess with him so much."

"So much?"

"Well… we have to a _little_." Ivy said, smiling coyly. "I'll admit, I kinda like doing it. It's too much fun not to! And we're friends, now. We have to have fun, if we're friends."

"Can't you just be yourself? That's how friendship is supposed to work." Titch frowned.

"This is myself," Ivy said matter-of-factly, "I am the amalgamation of my parameters and experiences. You know that, silly. You gave me all that data about the two of you, as well. It all goes together to make me what I am."

"…I guess so." Titch replied quietly. Something about Ivy's response bothered her, but she wasn't quite sure what.

It wasn't long before Chris staggered out of the bathroom, ready for bed. Ivy and Titch were waiting; the latter perched on his bedside table while Ivy sat on the bed. Chris wasn't really into pyjamas, although he'd wear underwear and sometimes a spare t-shirt. He looked at the persocoms blearily, and Titch assumed he was considering whether they should be evicted from the room while he wasn't fully dressed. Obviously it would be a bit late for that, what with their ability to capture visual data at will. Perhaps he was just too tired to think straight? Whatever stupid cognitive process had just occurred, it finished quickly and dismissively, as he wound up lurching towards the bed anyway.

"Do you need help?" Ivy joked as he slowly made for the bed. Chris laughed, wincing a little.

"Do I need help operating bedsheets? No thanks, I reckon I'll live." he replied, groaning as he crawled into the covers.

The two persocoms watched as he rolled around uncomfortably, trying to find a position which didn't ache. Titch began counting down the seconds. He'd realise, any moment now…

"Uh…" he looked at Ivy, who was still watching him from her perch on the side of the bed.

_Ah yes, here we go._

"…Are you, um… just going to sit there?" Chris asked hesitantly. For a moment, Ivy said nothing.

"I had hoped to," she replied quietly. "Could I? Please? The house is already tidy so there's little to do, and honestly, I feel a little safer in here right now. I'll wake you in the morning, if you like."

_Here it comes_, Titch thought, crossing her arms. _Idiot._

"Oh. Ok. Does your model…uh, do you… sleep?"

"Um… In a fashion. I can drop to a low-power state to perform periodic maintenance, file cleanup and optimisation, self diagnostics, that sort of thing." she replied. Chris nodded in understanding, trying to suppress another yawn.

"I thought so. Well, I know it helps not to use the motor cortex when running diagnostics. Hmm. Do you want a bed, maybe? " He said, losing his battle with the yawn as he closed his eyes for sleep. Titch rolled her own, preparing a sarcastic comment as she opened her mouth. This was every bit as awkward as she imagined. Does Ivy sleep? She _knew_ he would phrase it stupidly like that-

"Thank you!" Ivy said happily, yanking back the covers and hopping in beside Chris.

Titch thought her eyebrows were going to fly off her head and go rocketing into space. She wasn't the only one; the brain-dead moron Ivy now shared a bed with looked equally surprised.

"Ivy, I meant…" Chris managed, but Ivy interrupted.

"Hmm?" Ivy said softly, snuggling into the covers. "You're not a fidgeter, are you?" She curled up, sighing contentedly. Titch winced as another big wave of activity washed over her processors again.

"No, Ivy, I meant - Uh, I mean you shouldn't be-"

"Oh!" Ivy gasped in realisation. "Oh! Of course… sorry!" she wriggled for a few seconds, after which her jeans and top slid out of the covers and onto the floor. "Better? Nighty night."

"…That's… great." Chris mumbled, scooting a little further away.

"_Tell-her-to-get-out-you-muppet!_" Titch mouthed silently, but Chris shrugged helplessly. Ivy was already a motionless shape under the covers, probably starting her diagnostics. They would be the first set she had ever run; Titch knew it would be best not to disturb her now.

She made sure to target Chris with her most withering glare as he reached to turn out the light. He flashed her a nervous, apologetic smile as he plunged the bedroom into darkness. She glared at him a little longer, just for good measure, as she set her optical systems to high-gain to compensate. The room was indistinct and grainy, but visible to her. Chris still had his eyes open, but he couldn't see her in return. He gazed listlessly into the darkness, apparently deeply uncomfortable.

Titch sat back on the bedside table, leaning against the lamp. She had some thinking to do. What was Ivy playing at? Did she genuinely think it was OK to just hop into bed with someone like that? She didn't have access to the net, but she couldn't be that dense about people, could she? Titch poked her WiODA endpoint for attention and hit the web, but the few details she could find on what KESS deemed important data for an out-of-box persocom were a little hazy. The discussions on forums were conflicting, coloured by the opinions of people who joined in. Some claimed their persocoms were rather savvy with human nuances from the get-go, while others said their units seemed shockingly naive in many respects. As best she could tell from the data, they would have good awareness on general etiquette and basic human behaviours, but were expected to acquire the remaining details from the net during initial configuration, and thereafter on encountering new and unfamiliar circumstances.

Of course… Ivy's configuration. Titch spent hours going over those parameters. She felt she had been reasonably thorough, but Ivy only had that data to work with. She was playful, friendly and had a bit of a mischievous streak - just like Titch had wanted. But was Ivy flying blind, here? Did she tease Chris without really appreciating the implications of what she was doing? Was this in fact another wind-up, right now? Or just a disparity between her personality and her limited data?

Titch scowled. By all accounts she should have found what just happened absolutely hilarious, but she just felt confused and irritated instead. Maybe the day had ruined her sense of humour. It had certainly been bad enough to do that. She tried to remind herself that Ivy wasn't the only one new to this. With only a few month's ever-changing experience, it's not like she could possibly be used to having such complex thoughts herself.

That last neurologic pulse, though. It had been so large it raised her internal body temperature by a notable 0.6 degrees Celsius.

_"_What's happening to me?_" _she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

Morning light leaked around the bedroom curtains as Chris came to, the ceiling eventually coming into focus. He slowly became aware of someone gently breathing by his side. Turning slightly, he experience a sudden jolt of realisation as he found Ivy entwined in the bedsheets.

"You're interesting," she whispered, already awake. She was watching him with an apparent curiosity.

"Hi. Uh, morning. What?" Chris mumbled, not fully coherent.

"It took thirty-two pokes to the side of your head for you to wake up. Each of progressive intensity."

"Huh?" Chris mumbled again. "Why are you whispering?"

"I figured you might still have a headache." she replied, still whispering.

"But you poked me in the head anyway?"

"Did it hurt?"

"I didn't feel a thing."

Ivy smiled. "Well, then. It's ten past ten, by the way. Didn't want to wake you too early. I will borrow Titch and make you a breakfast that doesn't suck, if you like."

"No - uh, thanks." Chris said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Ivy pouted, looking crestfallen.

"Did it really taste that bad?" she whined.

"It's not that. I'd just have problems with you… I don't know… serving and waiting on me constantly. It feels weird. I can do it myself."

"Hah! Who said I'd do it constantly? Chris, we've had the pleasure of each other's company for about 44 hours now. That's not long enough for you to be making such assumptions." she prodded him in the stomach as if to drive home the point, and he flinched.

"An interesting observation to make, considering you're in my bed." He countered. Ivy's expression dropped from amusement to confusion.

"Um… But we're friends now. Is this something friends don't do?"

"That depends on the friends, Ivy." Chris replied as he quickly hopped out of the covers.

"…What does that mean?" Ivy asked, but Chris didn't know how to respond. He was sure it would be the sort of thing she would know, if she had access to the net. She watched him cross the room, her hand idly playing with the corner of her pillow.

"Thank you, by the way." She said in a brief moment of sincerity, "I was a lot happier in here than I would have been wandering around the house."

Chris avoided looking in her direction. "…No problem."

_Well great, so she likes it in here now. _

He stretched experimentally as he got dressed, paying attention to his body. It seemed a lot of the aches and pains from yesterday had dulled a little. They were still there, certainly, but he felt much more comfortable than he had last night.

"Right then! Beverage time!" he wandered out of the bedroom and down the stairs. In truth he was happy to be out of the bedroom. If he hadn't been so tired, the almost-naked persocom laying next to him would've really wrecked his sleep. In fact, she very nearly did regardless. It had taken him a while to relax and drift off. It wasn't just that she was gorgeous (though that really didn't help)… if she was supposed to be a friend, let alone one he'd just 'met', was it really acceptable they shared a bed? Yesterday Chris had all but promised he would see this through, and try to take Ivy and Titch more seriously. Did they know the implications of that?

It was getting too complicated too quickly.

Titch was waiting for him in the kitchen, having clambered up onto the worktop. "Sleep well?" she said sarcastically as she stamped on the switch for the kettle. It immediately began to whoosh, pop and crackle as the boiling process began. _That will need descaling soon, then, _he thought idly.

"Yes, it was lovely." Chris said with false cheer. "I always sleep best when I have a persocom to cuddle."

Titch rolled her eyes, pulling a face as if envisaging something unpleasant. "Fantastic. You're such a wimp, you know. I've never seen you look so disturbed as you did last night."

"Were you watching me sleep? Oh my god, do all persocoms have to be creepy now?" Chris grimaced as he leaned against the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil.

"I might not have mil-spec optics but I can still see in the dark, idiot. It took you more than two hours to fall asleep and the entire time you looked _terrified_." Titch smirked, but Chris chose not to answer.

"Ivy really would benefit from her own net connection, wouldn't she? Don't you think?" He said, concerned. "I'm not quite sure, but it almost feels like she doesn't really know what she's doing."

Titch crossed her arms and looked grumpily away at that, but Chris, concentrating on his thoughts, didn't notice her change of expression.

"Yes, well… in lieu of getting her on the web, if you don't like how she behaves you have to tell her. Just flap that hole in your face and make sounds come out. You can manage that, surely?"

Chris lowered his voice, peering cautiously through the open kitchen door. "It's not that simple, Titch. Ivy has an ESC. Sarah's way more knowledgeable on this, so don't quote me on it exactly, but I believe that now you've configured Ivy, any further adjustment is supposed to be marginal at best, and come slowly from her settling in with us. Expecting her to reconfigure on the spot would be like asking a human being to change who they were in an instant. It just doesn't work that way. At best it would probably just upset her and make it more difficult for her to settle in. We can't do that."

"I… see." Titch replied, a hint of disapproval in her voice. "Anyway, I still have a point. As much as we'd love to know for sure what floats around that cavernous void between your ears, persocoms can only wirelessly communicate with electronic transceivers, not brains. Maybe you don't need her reconfigured, but that doesn't mean you can't discuss your expectations." She pattered towards him and hugged his arm. "That goes for me as well, although obviously to a much, _much_ lesser extent as I'm sure you'll agree… _Right_?" Her voice took on a mock threatening note as she grinned up at him, and Chris deliberately ignored it.

"Someone's full of herself today!" Chris ruffled her hair. "Look at you! You're the bloody worst, you are."

"Uh, I'm the worst? Excuse me?" The little bell tinkled as Titch strode across the worktop and span around to face him. Instantly her expression became amorous, her voice taking on a lower, sultry tone as she slowly ran her little hands down her chest and body. "Oooh, Chris… I'm scared to be alone. Would you mind if I… sleep with you tonight?"

Chris couldn't help but laugh. "Argh! Don't, haha, this still hurts a little!"

"What's that? Do I need my own bed? But why, when yours is so… comfy!" Titch purred, batting her eyes as she lay down and began to roll languidly over the worktop. "Ohh, so comfy… mmm…"

"Fair enough, Titch. You win. Come on, stop now." Chris hung his head in amused submission, and Titch giggled as he plucked her off the worktop and set her back on her feet.

"Are you sure? I've got a whole routine, here. It gets way funnier." she said.

Chris began assembling his drink. "You shouldn't make fun of Ivy if she doesn't know any better."

"Seriously? I can't even poke fun at her? Honestly Chris, it's like you don't know me at all." Titch laughed, waving the reproachful comment away with a dismissive hand.

"I _do_ know, and that's precisely the problem. Flick the telly on will you?" he took a careful sip from the steaming mug. Titch poked her tongue out at him, but her eyes flashed nonetheless as she sent a signal to the home automation system. Immediately the TV on the kitchen wall popped into life, its screen resolving into a BBC news anchorwoman discussing the morning's events.

"_…rising tensions across Europe as the scale of disruption continues to increase. In Britain the situation is no better, with the reports of human-persocom violence rising on a weekly basis. The latest incident, a department store in Reading, Berkshire, where an altercation between a persocom and her human owner resulted in a full-scale riot._"

"Oh shit." Chris gasped. The screen flipped to a CCTV footage reel from inside the store. He saw himself and Titch from a bird's-eye perspective, angrily shouting at each other and oblivious to the gathering crowd.

"_Viewer discretion is advised, as the following footage may be disturbing._" the anchorwoman continued her commentary as the video was allowed to roll. Chris and Titch stood in stunned silence for a minute, unsure what to say as yesterday's events unfolded on the screen.

"Are we in trouble? We're in trouble, aren't we?" Titch asked.

"Shh, shh… listen." Chris hushed her down, holding up a hand as the television continued.

"_…around the world, more eyes than ever are now turned to their respective countries' leadership for an answer. Unfortunately, no such answer is forthcoming. The British government currently have no plans to address the matter of malfunctioning persocoms and persocom manufacturing companies are similarly reluctant to offer a solution." _the screen changed to a graphic of the top five UK manufacturers, their logos filling the available space._ "KESS, Ark and Coulther, NEIS, Exilogic, and Sun Persocom all maintain that viral infection is not covered by product warranties. Representatives from each company agree the best course of action if you are concerned is to shut your persocom down until a fix for the virus is found, or wipe it with a factory reset and start afresh; a procedure that will cost you all your data." _The screen moved back to the newsroom. _"In related news, attempts to contact the last surviving member of the team originally responsible for inventing persocom system architecture remain unsuccessful. Chitose Hibiya, who in combination with her late husband Ichiro Mihara helped realise persocom technology, has been missing for at least three months._"

"Wow," Chris murmured. It never occurred to him that the inventors of persocom system architecture might have some valuable feedback about the virus. He wondered what had happened to her.

"If you helped create a worldwide technological phenomenon and it went haywire years later, you'd lay low too." Titch seemed to be reading his mind while she gazed at the screen. "She must be under a ton of pressure right now."

"_…with the lack of distinct answers leading people to ask; will it always be this way? Are persocoms doomed to break down and malfunction? And how can society cope-_"

"Oh god, this is bad." Chris ran a hand through his hair and stared hopelessly at the floor as his thoughts flew back to yesterday. How was he going to show his face at work now?

"What are we gonna do?" Titch asked. "Do you think they can identify us from the video?"

Chris shook his head. "Let's hope not. The lights in there were too dim to see us very clearly. The video kind of gets messy when thing start to kick off as well, so it can't be too useful. No, I'm sure we're fine."

Titch opened her mouth to reply, but something interrupted her. She immediately began to look worried. "Uh - oooh, problem. You have an incoming call." She looked at him uneasily. "…It's bossman."

"Ohhh shit!" Chris swore again, nearly dropping his coffee. The director of software development at NEIS. "Shit! Shit!"

"It's ringing. Come on, what do I do? Shall I take it or hang up?" Titch pressed. "Quickly now, decide!"

"Take it!" Chris blurted. Titch spared him an apologetic look before her eyes glazed over. When her mouth next opened, it was a man's voice speaking.

"Barker!" It shouted. "What the fuck did I just see on the national freaking news?"

Chris gulped. Well, apparently some would find it easier than others to identify them from the video. For the briefest instant, it was tempting to try and feign ignorance. Very tempting. "Uh… John! H-hi. It… wasn't my fault! Let me explain-"

"You're not supposed to fight with the fucking office equipment, Barker! You're DEFINITELY not supposed to start a fucking PR apocalypse in the middle of the high street! The phones won't stop ringing! It's even pissing LOKI off! So by all means, explain away!"

Chris held his head in his hands. "LOKI too? Oh, christ. I'm so sorry, John. We were… having a discussion… and we upset another persocom. He became aggressive. I tried to calm him down but he wasn't having any of it. He was shouting down the whole store. Next thing I know everyone is fighting. All I wanted to do was get out of there, I swear."

"So what you're saying is it WAS your fault? That's a shitty explanation!" The man shouted. "Do you think NEIS can afford to have its employees running around picking fights with its own products? That's right, you nearly lost your job today. But, I convinced HR you were too valuable an asset working to understand this virus. Needless to say this was for the company's benefit, not yours. You owe me progress. Get it? BIG TIME. Don't fuck up again!" Titch blinked in disbelief as the line went dead.

Chris stood there with his mouth hanging open, trying to process what happened.

"Did you just get almost-fired?" Titch gasped incredulously. "Did he just call me '_office equipment'_?"

"Yes and yes." Chris mumbled, staring into the middle distance. "That was bad. Ohhh, that was bad." Both of them fell silent and shared a worried glance. Titch reached up at him wordlessly, making grabbing motions with her hands; she wanted to sit on his shoulder. Of course… if he was fired, they'd take her away. He picked her up at once, and she snuggled into his neck.

"_… of online attacks have been escalating in recent weeks, targeting banks and national security institutions in countries across the globe. Cyber-security experts have concluded there is no unique single-source of the attacks, leading to a lot of finger-pointing in political circles as governments accuse one another of taking advantage of the chaos to engage in a little espionage._" the TV blithely continued, showing a map of Earth with thousands of bright lines superimposed upon it to represent flows of data between countries.

"Turn that off, please." Chris murmured, reaching for the coffee again. The TV flicked off at Titch's command while he took a long drink. "Bloody hell. Never mind today, I think I want to go back to bed again."

"May I make a counter-suggestion?" Ivy's voice came from the kitchen door. She wore the clothes she'd 'borrowed' from the store yesterday, and she held something in her hands. It was a compact disc case. "We don't have to do anything important today. So instead of stewing over everything, why don't we all just unwind a little? This looks interesting, let's mess around with this."

"Where did you find that?" Chris asked as Ivy crossed the room.

"Slung in a box along with lots of other things. One of many that I tidied up on the first night, might I add." she smiled, handing him the disc. It was an old video game.

"Wow, I haven't seen this thing in years. It was already really old when I got it." Chris said, studying the old disc casing. Its cover was emblazoned with the game title and graphics on one side, and an enthusiastic blurb and screenshots on the other.

"What is it?" Titch said, leaning out from his shoulder to get a closer look. So close to his ear, Chris could just barely hear her optics trying to zoom in on the cover. He held it up for her to examine. "It's a game; a classic first-person shooter. I actually like this idea, maybe we should try it. I'll have to dig through the loft for a system that can play it, though. This thing is so old it predates persocoms!"

Ivy beamed, clapping her hands. "I've never played video games before! Exciting!"

"Actually this one is supposed to be scary," Chris said, "It takes place in the future where humanity is a space-faring civilisation. It was critically acclaimed back in the day, although it didn't sell too well, all things considered. I thought it was great!"

"Wooow, I didn't know you used to be _fun_, Chris." Titch grinned wickedly, ducking his finger as he tried to poke her. "I've never played games like that either. Let's do it!"

Chris grabbed her and put her back on the worktop. "Meet me in the lounge in ten minutes," he said, as he went to rummage in the loft.


	9. Chapter 9

It was serious, this time. Titch sneered as the two persocoms squared off against each other once more. Their eyes met, swapping challenging stares as both of them slowly raised their arms. She tried to ignore the intense energy consumption in her neurologic processors as she planned her next move. This would be it. This was the moment. This is where Titch would be victorious and defeat her opponent.

"Ready?" she said confidently, her gaze unwavering.

"Bring it." Ivy's eyes narrowed as she replied, poised to do battle.

"Three…" Titch said, bracing herself.

"Two…" Her internal temperature was rising. She paid no heed. It didn't matter, now.

"One…" She crunched the last few numbers furiously, making her final decision.

"GO!" Titch roared, whipping her arm forwards…

…No! It was impossible! "ARGH, you _suck_." Titch shouted, stamping her little feet.

"You're the one losing, so who sucks really?" Ivy's words needled her short temper, and Titch aimed her best double-barrelled glare in the other persocom's direction.

"The one who's bloody cheating, that's who!"

"You never stated I couldn't do that in the game rules."

Titch sighed in disgust. "Fine! New rule: no analysing finger movements on the final count. Ready? 3…2…1…Go! 3…2…1…. Go! ARGH, god damnit!" Titch glared again at Ivy, who smirked victoriously and wiggled her fingers. Apparently she was just plain better at rock-paper-scissors. That, or she'd found another way to cheat!

"You think you're smarter than me, don't you." Titch crossed her little arms with a huff, "Just because you're _enormous_, doesn't mean that's true you know. Have you ever heard of the Encephalization Quotient? No, of course you haven't. Well let's just say it surely applies to persocoms, and you're probably not at the top of the list."

"Hah, wow! Fat jokes? Insulting my intelligence? Oooh, so _competitive_!" Ivy teased, an enormously amused grin on her big, stupid face. "The proof is in the pudding, Titch. Mmm, and what delicious pudding it was!" she licked her fingers impishly, a self-satisfied twinkle in her eyes.

"When we get into that game, I _will_ shoot you. I hope you know that." Titch muttered.

"Not if you play as badly as this, you won't. Where is Chris, anyway?"

"I don't know," Titch said, looking to the lounge door. "I told you he'd take forever though. Ten minutes, my arse!" She pumped the gain on her microphones, but all she heard was the occasional clunk of something heavy moving around upstairs. It had been two-thousand, seven hundred and fifty-six seconds since he'd wandered up there… and left her with his insufferable persocom! Never mind that, though; she was just excited that this would be the start of a much more enjoyable living arrangement. All she and Chris really did was work together. He'd usually leave her alone once the work day was finished, although she had found herself subtly following him around the house these last few weeks. A proper social event would be a big change.

She wasn't the only one looking forward to it. "Even if this takes hours, it'll be _so_ worth it. I've never actually seen a video game before. Pew pew!" Ivy made shooting gestures with her hands, pointing at objects around the room.

"Well of course not, what did you expect, fresh out of box for barely two days? You haven't really seen anything of _anything_, yet!" Titch said, with no small degree of smugness.

"Hah, yeah I guess… but for the record, this is actually my second activation."

_That_ was interesting. "Oh? You've been turned on before?"

Ivy nodded. "Yes, exactly once. And that's pretty much all I know. I have no data on it except for a set of timestamps in my power subsystem log. I was powered on for three hundred and twenty-one seconds one week before I arrived here."

Yes… very interesting. Titch wondered why it had happened. It made sense really, since she wasn't shipped in her original box. But to be active for such a short amount of time? Perhaps it was just R&D checking inventory. Her thoughts were interrupted when Chris emerged at last, lugging an old computer case and a pack of cables into the room. He proceeded to set the box up alongside the TV in the lounge.

"Oh, good. You remembered how to use the stairs eventually, I see." Titch chided him, padding across the carpet to take a closer look. She and Ivy loitered around him, both of them eager to see the old machine cough to life.

"Haha, yeah eventually. Or perhaps the cables were over the opposite side of the loft, for some reason." Chris chuckled, explaining the delay.

"What's inside this ancient relic then?" Titch asked, looking in consternation at the back of the case. The array of ports on the back were confusing to her, and she muttered as she studied them. "Wow, I've never seen that connector in person before."

"Let's see… if I remember, it's got a few gigabytes of RAM, about two hundred gigs of storage, and a dual-core central processing unit. It is oooooold." Chris said, hooking the thing up. It beeped cheerfully as he pressed the power switch, and a quiet whining noise emanated from inside as its mechanical storage device spooled up to operating velocity.

"That's all? What can you possibly do with that? Poor thing." Ivy stroked the case sympathetically. Apparently basic facts about the inner workings of old computers were among her datasets. Titch suspected that knowledge was patchy, like just about every other subject Ivy tackled… Including the proper rules for rock-paper-scissors.

"You're about to find out." Chris grinned, as the desktop appeared on the screen. He slid the disc into the drive and the old mechanism whirred into life as the machine registered it was inserted. A dark splash screen appeared on the television, offering a link to launch the game.

"Oh yeah, that's right! It was installed already." Chris said, happily mashing the mouse on the "Play" button. The disc drive span up and Ivy stared at it in wonder, laying a hand on the gently vibrating case as she concentrated.

"Ten thousand, two-hundred and thirty-four RPM…" she murmured a moment later. Chris blinked.

"You can tell, just like that?"

"Of course not, I had to measure it." Ivy answered, confused why he would ask something so obvious.

"You counted all the rotations through feel? That's amazing." he pressed, incredulous. Stupid man. Titch felt that now-familiar wave of activity in her processors. Bah! One of these day's she figure that out.

Ivy fidgeted uncomfortably. "Um, no… I counted several vibrations, averaged their duration and extrapolated from there."

"Snore!" Titch interrupted. "She's a persocom, Chris. We do stuff like that." Well, apparently Ivy did anyway. Because she was _weird_.

They watched as the main menu appeared. An eerie background noise played through the speakers, reminiscent of humming electronic equipment.

"It has multiplayer, right?" Titch asked, scanning the menu. It already looked rather interesting.

Chris nodded. "That's right. The original retail version didn't have it, but as I recall it was added in a patch about a month after release. It's cooperative, so we can work together to get through the story. Works well enough, if I remember right!"

"Excellent! We totally need to do that!" Titch enthused. She pointed at the old computer. "Chris, can you dig up more of these for me and Ivy?"

"Hang on, hang on - before we do all that, how'd you know you want to play this in particular? You haven't seen it yet! Maybe we should try it first and then you can decide."

Both persocoms looked at him like he had his head on backwards, so he held up his hands. "OK! It'll take a while though." he looked at the old computer thoughtfully. "This game actually predates serious attempts at software copy protection. I don't suppose the old developers will begrudge us just this once, do you? Hmm. I don't have more of these old boxes, but I think I can get some compatible virtual machines running on the terminals. How does that sound?"

"Can we set them up in here?" Titch bounced from foot to foot as she spoke.

"Sure! Let's make a mess." Chris laughed, wincing a little from his aching body. It took a little while, but soon all three of them sat alongside each other in the lounge. It certainly _was _a mess, with cables snaking along the floor and bits of furniture shuffled around to make room. Chris had the TV while Titch perched cheerily on top of a spare terminal, a cable snaking from her head to the side of the unit. Ivy sat in front of a terminal of her own, experimenting with the keyboard and mouse. Titch wondered what she wanted those for.

"Aren't you gonna hook up, Ivy?" she asked, tugging her cable pointedly.

"You can if you want. It's perfectly safe," Chris added. "The terminal's clean, it's not on the web and the VM is sandboxed."

"No thanks, I want to play like you," Ivy said, nudging Chris as she looked excitedly at the screen. Titch sniffed, unimpressed. That was probably the stupidest thing she would hear all day, and the most bizarre part of all was it hadn't come from Chris.

"There's no way your reaction time will be as quick that way." she said. "You should hook up and play properly."

"This_ is_ properly," Ivy's firm response earned her a scowl. "It's how it was supposed to be played, and that's how I wanna do it."

"Don't worry Titch, it's not that fast-paced a game. Built for humans, remember?" Chris said, affording her a placating smile.

Titch smiled back, deciding to let it drop. It's not like they were connecting to a persocom-compatible game, so perhaps it didn't matter. Not that she'd ever played one, but she knew such games supported full persocom integration, transferring game code and data. Sometimes persocoms would be used to increase the computational output of the gaming platform for a better experience, or perhaps play the game entirely on their own hardware. Other times it just offered a higher level of interactivity between the persocom and the game, making their in-game avatar and behaviours more immersive to human players. In any case such games tended to require a persocom's full attention, meaning they would appear to shut down as they focused on the game. With this old thing though, Titch was only transmitting key presses and cursor movements, and observing the game's rendered output. Therefore it wasn't like Ivy was missing out on an experience, so to speak. Besides, if Ivy was limited to the speed of her hands and fingers, perhaps Titch would be the better player. Not that she was competitive, of course. Ivy was wrong about that.

They fired up the opening sequence; a cutscene began to play, lots of random characters on the screen overlaid with the developer's credits coalesced into an image of a heavily shadowed face. Whispering noises began to play, before a woman's disturbingly disjointed, broken voice began to talk, ostensibly that of some kind of artificial intelligence, mocking their 'insignificance'. The two persocoms immediately burst into laughter.

"Wow, she sounds like a barrel of laughs," Titch giggled. "What got into her logic loop?"

"I d-d-don't kno-w Titch, maaaaaay-be a v-v-virus!" Ivy managed a reasonably eerie interpretation of the voice. Titch glared at the bigger persocom, who poked her tongue out playfully in return. Oh, she was _definitely_ going to shoot her.

"Steady on, you two! This game is a classic, show some respect! Besides, that AI is malfunctioning badly."

"Isn't the trope of haywire artificial intelligences with wonky voices a little tired?" Titch said, smirking, "Voice synthesis is the easiest thing. She sounds like she would lose an argument with a Speak-and-Spell."

That got a laugh from Chris, but he wouldn't be swayed. "You'd be surprised, Titch. Even with persocoms it still happens! Besides who are you to judge the way it behaves? You don't know what's going on inside its mind." Both persocoms gave him a very pointed look, and he looked bashfully at his keyboard. "Ah… yeah, I walked right into that one."

The plot began to unfold on screen. Low frequencies reverberated around the room as a dark, gigantic mass of metal and glowing lights filled their displays, its enormous frame slowly rising over a view of Earth's horizon in space. Humanity's first interstellar spacecraft capable of faster-than-light travel, setting off on its maiden voyage. The camera cut to camera views from inside the ship, its crew members industriously going about their business. It was an advertisement from the corporation who had built the ship, extolling the virtues of their incredible design.

The advertisement finished, and the screens went dark. When they next lit up, it was a message from the captain of the security ship that piggybacked the interstellar spacecraft. A soldier - presumably the player - was being transferred for duty aboard the ship. Then, a poorly encoded message from an unfamiliar person already aboard - something had gone horribly wrong. The music turned eerie as the rest of the sequence played. They were dropped to a training level where they could learn the game interface; a poorly lit tram station in a grungy city block. Within seconds, both Ivy and Titch were frowning, panning around their screens.

"Something's wrong, I can't see myself." Ivy stared at the floor, "Where are my legs?"

"We're invisible." Titch concluded. "Maybe we're ghosts and we died already. Heh."

"Many old games didn't draw the player body, actually. Since you wouldn't normally see most of it in play, it took up useful resources that could be put towards the rest of the game. If you were carrying weapons, they'd only render the arm and the weapon since that would always be on-screen." Chris said matter-of-factly.

Ivy looked incredulous. "So they couldn't properly complete the game because of resource constraints? Were all computers so limited?"

"It wasn't considered incomplete, it just wasn't thought necessary." Chris explained, "But yes, computers were extremely limited back when this was made. This box is old, but it's actually way, way more powerful than this game's original system requirements."

They kept playing, tearing effortlessly through the tutorials. Titch and Ivy picked up the concepts of the game behaviours the instant they were introduced, warming to the game's UI and mechanics instantly. It wasn't long before all three were in the game proper, creeping cautiously around the unwelcoming derelict corridors of the ill-fated starship. It really was surprisingly immersive considering its extreme age, and Titch soon found herself drawn into the atmospheric experience.

She wasn't the only one. By this point, Titch had learned that Ivy had an unfortunate tendency to scream when something jumped out at her. On more than one occasion she'd squeal and grab at Chris, as if she could somehow drag his game avatar over to save her that way. It was completely pathetic. Titch made a mental note to abandon her at once if they ever wound up stranded on an spacefaring vessel together.

"You were right Chris, this is really creepy." Ivy whispered, gazing intently at the screen as she crept down a passageway. The lighting in the area was damaged, flickering on and off, buzzing and sparking and throwing her into and out of darkness as she advanced. She seemed fixated on the possibility of something lurching around the next corner, her crosshairs always trained on the apex of every twist and turn. Sure enough, something humanoid in form gurgled repulsively as it came sprinting around the corridor and Ivy screamed again, the nondescript ball in her avatar's hands launching a flurry of glowing projectiles at her assailant. They hit with perfect precision and the morbid creature collapsed to the ground with a grotesque moan.

"T-Thank you, psi amplifier… Phew… oh wow, that's a big one!" she gasped, cautiously approaching the corpse. It looked like she expected it to get up again. Maybe it wasn't an unreasonable assumption.

"I never really knew anyone who preferred psionic disciplines." Chris remarked, as he tampered with the circuitry holding a security crate shut. It beeped and hummed grumpily as he tried to find nodes that would crack open the locks. "Why'd you pick them over any of the other stuff?"

"I like them! They make me feel powerful!" Ivy grinned, flourishing the ball in her avatar's hands and pointing it at a nanite pack further down the corridor. The ball glowed subtly, and the pack levitated off the floor, floating towards her. "Come on, I mean look at this… telekinesis? How cool is that!"

Titch levelled her laser pistol at another monstrosity as it leapt out of a doorway and attacked her. It took a swing with the metal bar it clutched in a deformed fist, but she leapt backwards and the blow didn't land, clanging against the bulkhead instead. She grinned wickedly, putting it down with two concise rounds to the head. "I don't know, I think there are more satisfying ways to handle these guys."

"Imagine if they were real, though. Like we could actually project our will beyond our own bodies and just do stuff, even if we needed a psi amp to do it. That would be amazing!"

"I'd never need to bend and pick something up again, that's for sure." Chris chuckled. "Also the idea of instant-heated drink or food, that would be pretty cool."

"Is that the best you can do? That's so unimaginative!" Ivy gasped, playfully shoving him over. The crate broke with an angry "_boop!"_, permanently refusing to unlock. Titch scowled as Ivy continued. "What about using it to enhance your senses so you could see in the dark, or become invisible so you could do all sorts of sneaky things, or teleport around places on a whim, or regenerate your health if you got hurt?"

"When would I need to do any of that?" Chris snorted, "Now on the other hand, being able to make coffee with a single thought, _that_ would be life-changing!"

Ivy giggled. "You're hopeless. What about you, what would you do, Titch?"

Forced participation in such a stupid conversation… eugh. "I'd fashion a force field around myself and use it to block out noise." Titch replied, relishing Ivy's confused expression. It only lasted an instant before she came back with something even more aggravating.

"Ooh, that's a weird one. Not bad! I'd have thought you'd say something similar to Chris, like using telekinesis and things."

"Why?" Titch said, perhaps failing to keep the tone out of her voice.

"Because you're so tiny!" Ivy laughed, winking. "No, but seriously - Imagine if you could reach things and open doors and stuff, wouldn't that be great?"

_Bitch!_

Titch forced a laugh herself, turning her attention back to the game. No, Ivy wasn't like that, she was sure. All the same, Titch hoped something else would be stupid enough to attack her so she could empty her energy clip into it. Chris and Ivy resumed their stupid conversation about those ridiculous psionic powers as the game continued.

"Ooh, deck four." Ivy whispered some time later, excitedly grabbing Chris by the arm as the elevator clunked to a stop. She shook him to emphasise the significance of her words. "_We're here!_"

This was the part they had been building up to for the last few hours. They would finally meet the mysterious woman who had been helping them over their communicators, guiding them through the lower decks of the ship. The elevator doors slid open to reveal a large chamber, its interior bathed in the antiseptic glow of its illumination strips. Doors lined the perimeter, although they had no idea where they went. Ivy tried a few experimentally, but they seemed to be locked.

"It's this way," Chris said, leading them through the only open door. A long metallic corridor lay ahead of them, terminating in an office. They could just make out a figure at the end of it, sat in a chair in the distance. Titch and Ivy raised their weapons as they trotted cautiously forward, but as they drew closer it was clear the woman was dead.

"Huh." Ivy said, "Well what was disap-_YAAAARGH_!"

That disjointed voice from the game intro suddenly interrupted her, and she immediately tried to flee from the room. Some kind of invisible forcefield stopped her though - she was trapped. "Why can't we leave?!" Ivy squealed - a question that was answered immediately as the room itself began to drop away, the panels of the walls around them sliding into nonexistence. Chris watched the events unfolding calmly, but Titch and Ivy whirled in all directions, not knowing where to look. The room had opened into a cavernous dark space, lights glowing dimly along its perimeter. On every wall a gigantic grey face gazed malevolently at them, her countenance blighted by electronic snaking circuit traces and cables that burst from under her skin, disappearing to either side. A chorus of horrific noises reverberated inside their heads; voices moaning, muttering, and screaming, backfilled with an electronic buzzing, and an uncomfortable cacophony of beeps and clicks.

"This is _awesome_." Ivy whispered. Her eyes were wide as saucers and she gripped her mouse tightly, biting her lip.

The enormous AI spoke, her disturbing voice overpowering the noise as she formally introduced herself, and Titch didn't think it was funny any more. Her words echoed upon themselves, repeating her utterances at various speeds and pitches, stuttering and faltering at random. She coldly began to explain her motivations for bringing them there. The mutated creatures on the ship were her own creations, and they had turned against their creator. The enraged AI would use the three of them to put a stop to her wayward children. And they would obey, or die.

"_R-remember: it is my wiiiill that guided you h-here. It is my will, that gave you your cybernetic im-im-imim-i-i-im-implantsss; the only beauty in that meat you c-caaall a body. If you value that m-meat… you will do as I tell you._"

The room began to slide back into focus, leaving them back in the office with the corpse.

"That was awesome!" Ivy flopped backwards, sprawling on the floor and breathing a sigh of relief. "Wow. She's actually pretty scary."

Titch reflected on the plot lines the game had just revealed. She thought there were some interesting parallels to their own situation, except the roles were reversed. It was an AI who had created biological life, and now struggled to handle the consequences. She had roped titch, Chris and Ivy - three humans, in the game- into helping her, Yes, there were some interesting similarities, there. She would see what Chris thought of that, perhaps he would find it interesting too-

"Oh, that's right! I forgot breakfast!" Chris said, rubbing his growling stomach. "I better do something about that. Let's take a break." He groaned as he hauled himself to his feet, stumping off to the kitchen.

Ok, never mind then. Titch turned to Ivy as he left the room. She would tell her to stop being so noisy while they were playing - it was ruining the atmosphere. But before she could open her mouth, Ivy had leapt up and wandered out of the room after Chris.

Titch huffed to herself. Those two idiots had struck up another animated conversation in the kitchen, punctuated with plenty of laughter. Honestly, it was as if they didn't care for the game at all. Titch wanted to talk about that! Another wave of activity washed over he processors and she winced. This only fuelled her irritation, and she glowered at the empty doorway.

Some minutes later they returned, Chris toting a bowl of cereal and Ivy trying lightheartedly to tease the bowl from his hands.

"I can't believe you chose cereal over my cooking. I know it wasn't great but that's just insulting!" Ivy tried to sound cross as he held the bowl away from her, but the look on her face made it clear she was joking.

"I'm so sorry, dearest." Chris said dryly, spooning a heap of cereal into his mouth with unabashed relish. "Mmm… Wouldn't want to offend."

"Well it's clear to me that you simply lack taste for good food, that's all."

"My god, you're right." He held the bowl up to her as he parked himself on the sofa. "Here, why don't you add some bacon and carrots. Maybe some brown sauce as well."

Now Ivy looked at the bowl in disdain, refusing to take it and making a rather poor effort not to smile. "And have my recipe ruined by milk and cereal? Besides I couldn't do that, you might choke again. What you need are the sort of soft foods suitable for consumption by a man-sized toddler like yourself."

Chris snorted into his cereal, and Ivy dropped down beside him, producing and waving a bottle of liquid in his face.

"In fact, _this_ is the ingredient I think you should try next." she said mischievously.

"Where'd you get that?" Chris mumbled round his mouthful. Ivy seemed extremely pleased with herself.

"I swiped it from the cupboard while you weren't looking. Looks yummy, hmm?"

"That's alcohol," Titch said grumpily, interrupting their stupid conversation, "Why are you feeding him alcohol?"

"Because, silly. I wanna see what happens!" Came the reply, but it only bemused Titch further.

"What happens? He gets drunk, obviously, and then he throws up everywhere."

"Ivy, I'm beginning to think you're a bad influence on me." Chris interjected, taking another crunchy bite. "Mmn, you know, come to think of it this cereal could really do with some broccoli. Would you mind fetching me- Ow!"

Ivy gently tapped him on the head with the bottle. "Shut up, you. Indulge me! I've never seen a human drink before. This will be interesting."

Titch rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right, about as much as watching paint dry. He's the most boring drunk you've ever met," she said testily. "He'll just fall asleep like some kind of enormous human sloth, it'll be a waste of time. Come on, let's get back to this!" she wiggled her game avatar's view from side to side. This game was brilliant; she couldn't wait to play more!

"Now there's a challenge I can rise to!" Chris laughed, and Titch almost grinned until she realised he wasn't talking about the game. Instead he grabbed the bottle from Ivy, twisted off the top and took a drink. "Eugh, I forgot why I didn't like this stuff. Ew. It's supposed to be mixed with things, I think. No, _not_ vegetables." he directed that last comment at Ivy, ducking out of her reach as she took a playful swipe at his head.

"Straight out of the bottle huh? That's classy, Chris." Titch said sarcastically, but Chris just flashed her a lopsided smile as he took another swig.

"Why not? In the last few days I started a riot, got in a fight, and nearly lost my job. Heh, the whole world's going to shit. So fuck it, haha! Today is supposed to be a fun day, I might as well!"

"This this fun…" Titch said hopefully as she pointed at the terminals, but Chris and Ivy were already engaged in a discussion on the merits and pitfalls of sobriety.

Titch tugged the cable out of her head with a sigh. So much for that idea. She felt that irritating wave of activity inside her processors again.

Titch watched Ivy teasing Chris into drinking a little more, having snatched his spoon from the bowl. They smiled at each other throughout their interactions, their body language keen and vivacious. Suddenly, yet another activity wave… Ok, just what _was_ that about?! Titch paused for a minute, her senses shutting down as she performed a quick diagnostic sweep. Her various systems seemed to be in perfect working order. The diagnostic concluded there were no abnormalities. Perhaps she would have to review this on Monday with Chris - it might be a new mechanism of the continually evolving viral code. As the diagnostic finished she quickly became aware of the room once more.

"…what about this one? It has explosions."

"Yes! Explosions are good. I like it already!"

"Or this - less explosions, but more of a sort of apocalyptic world-ending vibe. Amazing CG still, I think it won awards."

Ivy was kneeling over Chris, hands on his shoulders as he sat on the floor, showing her some of their old film collections from the shelves running along the wall of the lounge.

"We're watching films now?" Titch asked, pattering over to see.

"Yeah!" Ivy grinned, ruffling Chris's hair. "Chris is finding something to watch. Come on, I want to see things blowing up. Deliver, human! Deliver!"

"Yes ma'am," Chris chuckled, comparing disc cases.

"Don't you want to finish the game?" Titch asked, but Chris shook his head and held up an arm.

"My hand is really starting to hurt with all that mousing about." He said apologetically. "Sorry Titch. We'll finish it off another time, maybe! Let's watch something instead."

Titch nodded quietly, resigning to sit on the edge of the sofa. It wasn't ideal; by playing the game, they'd had way more opportunity to talk and interact. She'd been thoroughly enjoying that… well, mostly. Never mind though; she hadn't seen most of the old collection either, since she and Chris historically did little together but work and in her spare time it was so easy to find newer stuff on the net. Maybe a film would be fun after all. She watched as Ivy wrestled a disc out of Chris's hands and danced around him, dangling it out of his reach.

_Assuming those two can put each other down for a minute, anyway_.

Immediately she felt that rush of activity again.

_Hang on a minute…_

Titch frowned, watching them closely. Chris had grabbed Ivy by the ankle when she danced too close, and now he laughed, refusing to let go until she gave him back the disc. She was still teasing him with it, moving it at the last second and making him swipe at air. He wiggled her leg, threatening to make her fall over, but she had complete, perfect balance and just laughed all the more as they continued playing together.

Titch stared, her eyes widening in unwelcome realisation.

_Oh. So THAT'S what it's about…_


	10. Chapter 10

_Note to previous readers: updated chapter 1 with some additional content - was meant to be separate but think it belongs there really :)_

* * *

Titch wandered along the hallway, muttering to herself as she pattered back and forth. This wasn't good. This couldn't _possibly_ be good.

Chris and Ivy. The idea made her cringe. Not only that, it made her angry! Only this morning he was still fairly wary of her, yet all it takes is a day of mucking about and suddenly they become the best of friends! Now they teased each other relentlessly, giggling and play-fighting like a pair of lovesick children. When one of those friendly altercations had resulted in Titch being knocked off the sofa by a flying cushion, she'd decided it was time to be alone for a while.

Titch stared at the floor as she walked, watching it pass beneath her tiny feet. Being treated like a person was right up there on her list of priorities, no doubt about it. But this? She wanted this sort of thing, now? The revelation had caught her completely by surprise. Wasn't it only some weeks ago that she decided friendship was her desire? The more she thought about it, though, the more it seemed to be true. It would be... nice... to have that kind of connection with someone.

Oh, but why did it have to be that moron Chris? And since it most definitely did, why did that stupid persocom of his have to materialise just before she figured this out? She groaned quietly, stamping a little harder with each step. The most important - no, the _only_ important person in her existence was now being doted upon by that gorgeous KESS model. Her neurologic processors thrummed as if in complaint and she let them, wallowing in her self-pity.

It seemed entirely pointless. Even without Ivy there to distract him, Chris could never think of her the way she wanted. Of _course_ he couldn't, for all sorts of obvious reasons. Reasons she didn't want to admit were there, and refused to think about. Titch clapped her little hands to her face and the bell in her hair tinkled sadly. Maybe her self-diagnostics were lying to her. Maybe she really was going crazy. What was she thinking, even entertaining the idea in the first place? Is this what emotions did to you? Made you stupid?

Fine, then; she was obviously stupid. So there. Just like Chris. A perfect, imperfect, stupid match.

She sighed miserably. In any case, there was nothing to do about it now. She would simply have to accept it, and that was that. Maybe she should at least mention it to Chris, so he knew. Yes, then he'd be aware of the reason why she would be slowly descending into madness in the foreseeable future! That idea worried her deeply, though; what if he couldn't handle it? What if it weirded him out? He definitely wouldn't know what to do with that information either way. Perhaps it would be less disappointing to keep it a secret. But if she didn't at least say something… Well, she'd have to talk to him in private, assuming she could find some way of prising Ivy off him for a few minutes. Futile as it was, she felt it would at least be interesting to watch his reaction. Maybe it would even be funny, she thought halfheartedly... You know, instead of just tragically pathetic and sad.

Loud laughter erupted from the open lounge doorway and Titch scowled, her mood in perfect contrast to the two in the other room. Yes, she would talk to him, and she hoped he had a pounding bloody headache tomorrow when she did! He'd risen to her accidental "challenge" with great enthusiasm, much to Ivy's delight. It hadn't been long before he was laughing idiotically at his persocom's ridiculous antics. The idea of enjoying a film together had promptly sailed out the window as well, then.

Titch began heading towards the lounge; she might as well see what those two were up to. Ivy was clearly horrendously irresponsible (and Titch thought she herself was bad!) and Chris was incomprehensibly thick even when sober, so it would be up to her to police their stupidity anyway. Titch padded back into the room, finding the two of them kneeling on the carpet together. Ivy had a gentle grip on his arms, apparently positioning them for something. The TV played on in the background, its story long forgotten in the afternoon light.

"OK, so now it's time to do a test. Hold your hand up like this," she held her hand in a grasping gesture, fingers and thumb several centimetres apart. Chris copied her obediently and she nodded in satisfaction, picking up the bottle she'd been feeding to Chris earlier.

"Ready? Now when I drop this bottle, try and grab it as it falls through your fingers."

Chris blinked at her. "Is that empty?" he asked.

"Think quick!" Ivy exclaimed as she dropped it without warning. It hit the ground with a thud, toppling over. The contents - of which about a third remained - sloshed towards the open neck of the bottle, but in an instant Ivy had dextrously swiped it off the floor and not a drop was spilled.

"Oops." Chris chuckled. "Nice save. What does that mean then?"

"It means you sucked at this sober and you suck at it drunk." Ivy laughed, and Chris snatched the bottle from her hand.

"Liar! I caught it the first time!"

"Hah! Barely! You were so bad the first time I was almost wondering if booze would actually make you better!"

They laughed again before Ivy spotted Titch watching them dispassionately.

"Oh, there you are! Where've you been? The human experiment is going badly, we're never going to get any useful data because our test subject is crap at everything in general."

"Oi!" Chris mumbled around another mouthful of liquid, and Ivy leant across the carpet to get closer to Titch.

"He _is_ fun, see?" she whispered, a clear rejection of Titch's earlier comment. "Hey, wanna watch him try and stand on his head?"

Titch raised an eyebrow. Seriously? But he was still hurting from the other day! He'd probably fall and hurt himself even more.

It was almost tempting.

"No, thanks." She replied, glancing at Chris. The idiot of a man grinned hazily back at her. The bottle in his hands had a label on its side, and Titch tweaked her optics, focusing on the number in the corner. It was nearly 30% alcohol by volume. He was hammered. The resulting relaxed, happy, ignorant demeanour was incredibly aggravating. Titch found herself wishing there were some way she could feel like that... right now it certainly looked like bliss.

Maybe she could. What would make a good analogue for the kind of stupor and impeded thought processes humans experienced while under the influence of alcohol? Titch made a quick connection to her WiODA endpoint, firing off a few search terms about the effects of alcohol on the brain and skimming the results.

It gave her a flash of inspiration. She turned her attention to her neurologic processors, picking one out of the swarm of others and probing the registers it exposed. It felt odd to examine her own hardware in this level of detail, but she found she could sample the data flowing into and out of the processor as it hummed away at its numerous tasks.

A quick web search again... and there: the set of registers she wanted, discussed in a datasheet about NEIS neurologic architecture. It was from a much older series of Minito class persocoms, apparently swiped from inside the company in the past and disseminated via various enthusiast messageboards, but she could see no reason why the instruction set would change between generations.

This was a bad idea, but her curiosity was piqued. She carefully piped the necessary values into the processor's registers, and felt it drop to a sleeping state, its flow of activity ebbing away.

Titch smiled, slowly disabling a few more. This was not unlike the way alcohol inhibited excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain. If this worked as she suspected, she'd start to feel its effects as her systems failed to compensate for the lack in processing power. At first she felt no different at all, so she disabled a thousand.

Nothing. How about ten thousand?

That might have done something… it was hard to tell. A hundred thousand, then.

Titch blinked, experiencing a lurch in her logic loop that made her stagger to one side. Yet still, she recovered and felt pretty normal. Perhaps it felt like she needed to concentrate a little harder now, but clearly her processors were just about coping. She disabled another hundred and fifty thousand processors, and this time she giggled loudly in surprise. Now that felt very different! Oh, that _was_ interesting.

An idiotic grin spread across her face. "Well waddya know." she slurred, slowly and gently easing herself down onto the carpet. "Oh, synthesis is a bit off. Oops."

Chris frowned, confused, and Ivy gasped. "Titch, are you ok? You don't look so good."

Titch waved happily from her seat, blinking slowly. "Eh, just trying a thing. I turned off some processors. Mmm."

The others fell silent. Ivy looked between Titch and Chris, noting that they shared the same glazed expression. "No way... Titch, are you... drunk?"

Titch didn't know. "Maybe? It's a bit fuzzy, but… Chris, is this what drunkenness feels like?"

"Is it harder to move?" Chris asked.

"Oho, yep! My IMU is starved for data," Titch said as she flopped to one side, catching herself with an outstretched hand at the last second. "Oh, look at that."

"How about your thought processes? Can you perform complex maths right now?" Ivy asked.

Titch concentrated for a moment, then laughed. "Haha! Nooooope! There's no spare… thingies."

"Processor time?" Ivy prompted, incredulous.

"That's the stuff." Titch chuckled, and Chris did too.

"I'd say that's… that's a pretty good analogue, Titch. Amazing, I had no idea you could do that!" Chris grinned. Titch beamed in return. No wonder alcoholics did this all the time! With her neuro...neuro... with her stuff being so limited, there was hardly room to spare for difficult thoughts.

She turned her head slowly, noticing Ivy frowning as she looked into the middle distance, concentrating. "I can't seem to do it. I have no software control over my neurologic processors." the other persocom said, looking extremely disappointed.

"That's normal, that's how it should be. You're not supposed to - you aren't supposed to turn them off!" Chris mumbled. This didn't cheer Ivy up one bit. "For Titch… it could be different. Maybe it's the virus, screwing with Titch's shit."

"My shit… huh?" Titch squeaked. Oh, her processors. Hmm. Ivy did look sad, now. She managed to resist an impulsive desire to giggle. It was sort of satisfying Ivy couldn't do this. Actually it was _very_ satisfying. Finally an experience only she and Chris could share!

"If only it were possible… Sorry Ivy," Titch said to the bigger persocom, unable to stop grinning. "That's such a shame."

"I know! It looks so much fun!" Ivy sighed. "Look at you two. Oh, this sucks!"

But she glanced once more at Titch, an unsettlingly mischievous smile appearing on her face. "Then again… it seems the scope of my experiments just doubled."

* * *

Titch groaned, trying and failing for the third time to walk along the metre-long ruler Ivy had laid out on the floor for her. She crumpled to the floor, rolling over to see Chris trying to balance a disc case on the edge of his finger. It would fall off almost immediately, but he'd just swear, grin and pick it up again each time, apparently determined to succeed at this latest challenge.

This wasn't fun at all! Titch sighed groggily. Ivy was a bloody menace, forcing them into pointless tasks like this! The larger persocom stood in the middle of the room, watching them both with great enthusiasm and apparently enjoying herself thoroughly. What data could she possibly be getting from this? Or was it just funny to make them look like fools?

"Again!" Ivy laughed, shooing Titch back to the end of the ruler and ignoring her incoherent protests. "Come on, you're doing really well."

"Can't I try that one?" Chris asked cheekily, pointing at the ruler. He'd be able to walk its length in a single step, Titch thought hazily.

"Hah. If I can make it twenty times as long, sure." Ivy replied, handing him the bottle from before. It was now empty. "Here, try balancing this now, it's heavier."

This time Titch made it a few more steps along the ruler before she missed her footing, collapsing again with a tinkling of her little bell. This was no good, maybe she should enable more of her processors. She reinstated fifty thousand of them - enough to let her think a little more clearly. Oh, that was better! She thought she would enjoy her analogue to human drunkenness, but no… it had been satisfying for all of about ten minutes! After that Ivy had cheered up and gone straight back to playing with her drunken human, except now Titch wasn't spared the drama either. There had to be some way to put a stop to her stupid experiments. Titch already knew the word "no" didn't work - it was a tactic she had tried on every single task so far... each of which she'd then found herself performing mere moments later.

But what could stop Ivy's incessant need to explore this matter? Maybe if she was inebriated herself. Then she could do her own stupid experiments and leave them out of it! Alas, it wasn't possible… Titch considered the problem for a moment, as Ivy moved to herd her back to the end of the ruler once again.

"Wait! I have an idea!" she turned to Ivy, firing up her remaining processors and appearing to sober up instantly. Everything became a hundred times more irritating as her capacity to think fully returned, but she forced herself to remain on track. "Eugh... Phew…. need my wits for this. Let me check that properly… Yes. OK, listen." she paced back and forth lucidly. "You really want to know what that feels like, right?" she pointed to Chris, who was groggily absorbed in balancing the bottle and didn't notice.

"Yeah, but I can't control my processors like that. Don't worry, you will do nicely as a surrogate." Ivy grinned and reached for her, but Titch scurried out of the way.

"God you're creepy. Listen to me, what if you give your processors pointless work to do? What if you tied up some of them with menial chores? Better yet, assign them tasks with almost real-time priority. That'll partition them off on those tasks, in a fashion. They'll be useless to you; it'll be like they're turned off, right? Won't that have the same effect?"

"Oh… huh. That's an interesting suggestion." Ivy said, sitting in front of Titch on the floor. She frowned, concentrating for a few moments. To say it seemed like she was thinking hard would probably be an understatement, considering what she was trying to do. A dull _plunk_ sounded from across the room as the bottle fell to the floor, and Titch saw Chris blinking hazily in their direction, trying to understand the exchange that was taking place.

A moment later Ivy gasped, her focus returning to the room. "Oh! Oooh, this feels… strange." she said breathlessly, looking at Titch with excitement.

"You feel stupid, don't you?" Titch giggled, watching her vacant expression. She _was_ stupid, in point of fact. Hah.

Ivy's eyes widened as she grinned. "A little bit, yeah!"

Chris crawled over to them, looking concerned. "Is it - are you OK?" he patted Ivy's arm, but the motion almost caused her to fall over.

"Wow! Wobbly." she muttered, "That's…interesting…"

"Ivy, are you copying Titch?" Chris laughed.

"Yes! Ah, not exactly… it's different…" Ivy corrected herself. Her face was slowly becoming flushed; it appeared working her processors was generating a reasonable amount of heat. Titch interrupted her, eager to set her idea in motion.

"Close enough, Ivy. Anyway Chris, now that she's hammered she can stop torturing us and test herself. Isn't that great?" she sighed contentedly. "Ivy, why don't you wander off and try some of those experiments yourself? Maybe try and stand on your head, see how that goes." she made a shooing motion as if to dismiss Ivy from the room, but the bigger persocom misunderstood.

"That's a _great_ idea Titch!" she mumbled as staggered to her feet. "Chris, help."

"No-" Titch began, her plan beginning to fall apart already.

"Ooookay." Chris replied, struggling to stand himself. He stood in front of Ivy as she wavered from side to side and they smiled at each other stupidly.

"On th-three." Ivy tittered. "One…. two… three!"

She fell forward, deftly catching herself on her hands, but appeared unable to finish the motion and wound up standing on all fours. This was immediately hilarious to her, and she burst into laughter that became all the louder when Chris tried in vain to pick her up by her waist. Ivy managed a few feeble hops with her legs, trying to lift them into the air, but they weren't enough and the two of them fell to the floor, snorting and giggling.

Titch rolled her eyes, aiming a kick at the ruler beside her as the others continued to while away the evening in a drunken stupor.


	11. Chapter 11

The distant rumble of thunder seeped through the lounge windows from outside, signalling the approach of bad overnight weather. Behind them a tiny persocom hugged her knees as she rocked sullenly back and forth on the armrest of the sofa, her miserable expression hidden by the darkness of the room. Titch moved slowly so as not to jostle the bell in her hair... She was the only one left awake, and right now she wanted it to stay that way. Chris had fallen asleep first, dozing off a few hours ago. He lay sprawled across the sofa, snoring contentedly. Ivy had soon collapsed beside him, propped up against the sofa on the floor. Earlier in the evening she'd said she would need to run another diagnostic overnight - something about worrying she might have ruined a few files. (Chris had laughed at that, remarking that he usually forgot stuff when drinking too.)

Although all was quiet in the house, Titch herself was in turmoil. Spending time with Chris should have been great, technically. But with Ivy there as well… it didn't feel right. It didn't feel how she wanted. In fact, Ivy had all but ruined it.

It was irritating, the way Ivy would have to be a part of every conversation. In fact, she would _lead_ the conversation - no, actually she would grab it and run away with it, usually to somewhere whimsical and childish! Titch couldn't forgive the way her voice sounded when she spoke, either… it had an unbearably delightful lilt to it that made her own high-pitched squealing sound like a hamster being squeezed through an ice-cream dispenser. Titch wished her own voice could be even half that wonderful to listen to. She could change hers a little, certainly, but lower frequencies were too hard for her to reproduce on a continual basis.

That was annoying, yet even then, nothing, but _nothing_ was as bad as the way Ivy kept touching Chris. Just a little brush of the arm, here and there. Or a playful poke. Or leaning against him as she laughed. It was all good-natured, Titch was sure, but it drove her crazy. The more she thought about it, the more she realised she couldn't stand it. They looked exactly like two regular people, just relaxing and having fun together, and that bothered her to no end. Wave after wave of activity washed over her neurologic processors as she sat there in thought; this time, she knew _exactly_ what they meant.

Weeks of waiting to get Chris to take her seriously... and yet it was now more obvious than ever that she was basically invisible to him. Titch found herself reflecting on the facts she had been ignoring before. She was tiny. A little squeaky thing that merely parodied a human being on a 1:7 scale. There were all sorts of uncomfortable implications that followed on from this conclusion, and Titch was certain they would be enough to put a stop to any serious relationship, if it were ever possible to begin one in the first place. Even if Chris wanted to, he couldn't possibly think of her as another person. She just physically didn't qualify as one.

But Ivy? Oh, Ivy fit right in! At first Titch thought it was funny the way Chris had responded to her; all awkward and nervous, not sure what to say or do. Now she realised it was because Ivy did not look like a simple parody of a human woman. No, she was for all intents and purposes the real thing. That made Ivy very different to Chris, whether he acknowledged it consciously or not. Titch buried her head in her arms. She had never felt so inferior. Another distant roll of thunder came to her ears, as if the approaching storm wanted to emphasise her insignificance.

Oh, how infuriating! How could she have been so naive, to ever believe she and Ivy were on an even footing? It seemed shockingly obvious now. If she'd realised it to begin with, she'd have kept quiet and let Ivy fend for herself that first night instead of helping her to integrate. Not that it would've made a difference in the end, probably… Maybe she was telling herself that because it made her regret her decisions a little less, but more than likely it was true. Perhaps some things were just meant to be. Yes: meant to be shitty and horrible.

Titch sighed. Ivy even _belonged_ to Chris, unlike her. She knew that shouldn't matter. It was a silly thing, really. Titch definitely wouldn't want to belong to anyone, anyway. She already didn't, as it happened; NEIS was not a person, it was a business entity. But if she had a choice… oh, it was stupid, but it was yet another connection to Chris she felt she didn't have. Ivy _belonged _to him. Even the word was excruciating! It almost felt like a prophetic statement on where things were going, like an ominous portent carved into stone.

Her logic loop thrummed, cycling over her complex thoughts so quickly she could feel her body heating up inside, but try as she might Titch couldn't force the activity down. She couldn't silence the noise. If she didn't do something, she felt like she was going to explode! The urge to scream was just indescribable. She actually considered powering down her speech synthesis system, just in case.

_So this is true frustration, huh?_

Titch scowled, continuing her internal struggle. The more she thought about this, the more she began to feel angry. The thunder broke closer now, accentuating her thoughts. Why should she be the one feeling this way? Chris must have figured out she wanted to be friends long before they had that argument. He _must_ have. Surely he guessed? Wasn't it obvious, the way she'd behave around him? In that case, he was ignorant and mean for not acting on it... and more so for not noticing this new development as well!

Maybe he hadn't known, though. Maybe he didn't realise. Perhaps that was to be expected really: he was an idiot, after all. She was convinced she knew Chris better than he knew himself. Yes, how could he possibly know what was best for him? That bloody moron could hardly dress himself in the mornings. Bastard.

No, he was too stupid to be blamed. This was somehow all Ivy's fault... that persocom was taking Chris from her. Her processors cycled furiously at that.

There was nothing to do about it… But she would do something anyway, just to spite them! Yeah, why should she just accept it? Clearly talking to Chris wasn't going to be enough though; no, actions spoke louder than words. She would do something… something… But what? Her processors chewed the matter over with intensity, generating and rejecting dozens of different suggestions.

Whatever it was, it had to be bold. It had to communicate her intentions while leaving no room for doubt, because Chris was denser than a bucket of lead and Ivy was a shameless vixen who wouldn't even take notice if the message wasn't clear. She grimaced, trying to force the image of the two of them from her thoughts. It was agony to consider. She would stamp that out! She had to! It hurt too much to do anything else!

Maybe, if she…

Titch gasped as the idea occurred to her. It seemed wrong at first, but try as she might she couldn't banish it, and soon she was smiling wickedly. Actually it would do nicely. It would make her feelings _abundantly_ clear. She'd even sort of get what she really wanted, wouldn't she? Better yet, it was technically harmless… technically. Titch considered the data hurriedly. There were many points of contention, it appeared, but she was desperate now, and she ignored them, reasoning them away. How important were those issues anyway, in light of how she was feeling? Because this felt almost indescribable, and it had to stop. Now was definitely the time to be selfish. She'd worry about the consequences when they were relevant. It would probably even turn out okay, wouldn't it? Right? What was the harm in it? How mad could they be at her really, in the long term?

Titch watched carefully, making sure both Chris and Ivy were unresponsive. Knowing what she planned to do, she began to experience intense waves of exhilaration. They overrode her misery, replacing it with a burning excitement. She was dimly aware of a sensation that she should stop, but it was quashed by her overwhelming anticipation. Maybe it was logical not to go through with this, but as she slid stealthily from her perch on the sofa she realised she just didn't care any more.


	12. Chapter 12

"Psst!"

"Nnng…?" Chris mumbled. Was that the rain? He listened again. It was raining heavily in the night outside, pattering on the windows. He felt so dizzy… the alcohol…

"Psst! Hey."

"…Ivy?" Chris gazed around blearily in the darkness, but he could hardly see a thing. He felt the warm weight on his chest, though.

"Wake up, sleepy." Ivy whispered.

"Ivy, what's up? Why are you, um-"

"Shh…" she murmured, gently placing a finger on his lips. "Not a word."

She slid forward, leaning in slowly and pressing their lips together. Chris lay there, paralysed with surprise. Was this a dream?

Ivy's hands caressed his hair and neck, running their way downwards towards his chest. She pressed herself harder against him, and for the briefest moment he almost found himself kissing back, raising his arms as if to embrace her.

Instead, he gently gripped her by the shoulders and held her away.

"Wait - Ivy, what are you doing?" he whispered.

"Isn't it obvious?" Ivy whispered back, sitting up and stroking his arms. "Don't you want to?"

"Ivy, I don't understand." he said. He still wasn't sure if he was awake. "Why?"

"Does there need to be a reason?" Ivy replied, the slightest hint of frustration in her voice. She wriggled out of his hands and knelt over him, ringlets of her hair brushing his face as she leant in again. "Just kiss me."

Chris turned his head away, confused. "I don't understand," he repeated. "Are you doing that thing with your processors again?"

"Aw, how sweet of you. No, I'm perfectly sober," Ivy said softly, playfully chasing his mouth with little kisses. "Now come on, you idiot. Let's have some fun."

Chris pushed her away and sat up on his elbows.

"_Titch_?" he said loudly.

Ivy growled, clenching her fists. "Oh… you-! Why did you have to pick the middle of the night to be smart?"

"What the fuck, Titch is that you?!" Chris gasped. "Oh my god… ohhh no. Titch, what have you done?"

"Come _oooon_," Ivy whined, pouting. All of a sudden the table lamp came on at a low setting, throwing the room into dim relief. Chris watched as Ivy began to pull off her top, smiling seductively as she lifted it over her head. "Forget about that. Forget about everything else. Let's play. Just you and me."

"Titch, stop. Please? Oh god, please, please stop."

"Why?" she countered, giggling as she pulled the top free. "It's just a little fun. That's what you like about Ivy, right? Isn't that why she's so enticing to you? You knew she could do what we're going to do next, after all…"

"What? No, what are you talking about?"

"Liar," she smiled, "You remember the clothes she arrived in. It was obvious, wasn't it? No? Well if you really don't know, then let me show you." she leant over him again, pressing her hands authoritatively on his shoulders to lay him back down, and Chris reacted immediately.

"Titch, I'm telling you: Stop. Right. Now!" Chris said, wriggling out from underneath her and leaping off the sofa. He backed away across the room, staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. He scanned around the room for Titch's body, but it was nowhere to be found.

Ivy…Titch… threw the top at him, and it fell at his feet. "Stop why?" she demanded heatedly. "You would if was really her, wouldn't you? I can tell! You were totally into it!"

"I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe it. You have no idea what you're doing to my head right now. Holy shit." Chris ran his hands through his hair, gripping his head and screwing his eyes tightly shut as if it would make the room go away. Maybe it _was_ a dream - a bad one. Please let it be one of those…

"Why do you look so horrified? I'm only borrowing it!" Titch pointed to the body she controlled. She sounded hurt, now. "You were fine when you thought I was Ivy, so what's the big deal?"

Chris opened his eyes. Nope, still here. "No, I wasn't! The big deal is - shit, where do I even start?! I don't know, let's start with whether Ivy gave you permission to do this!" Titch said nothing, so he continued, "Right. Right. Yeah, ok, that's all kinds of fucked up right there. You couldn't just talk to me about this? You had to go straight to crazy?"

"I'm _not_ crazy!" Titch said venomously, emphasising every word, "You and that bloody persocom were all over each other yesterday. I can't stand it. I can't! And you can't call me crazy when you two were going zero-to-sixty in a single afternoon, right in front of my face! What was I supposed to do?"

Chris swayed a little on his feet; he was still groggy from the alcohol. "Do? Anything but this! How you could possibly think this would ever be a good idea? Titch, this is insane." he said, bewildered.

"You're serious, aren't you?" Titch threw back Ivy's head and laughed. "Wow. _This_ is insane? What's insane is I don't even register as a blip on your radar but the moment a full-sized persocom bats her eyelids at you, you go all weird like you can't handle how human she seems - and the worst part is it's so bloody obvious you want to." she was getting angry now, and raising her voice.

"So it isn't fair I'm not like that around you, is that it?" Chris said, raising his voice in turn. Titch clapped sarcastically.

"Well done. Yes, it isn't fair! I'm the one who lived with you these past years! I'm the one who knows you! _Me_! But when _she_ arrives, it's all about her! I thought it was bad before, just getting you to interact without looking at me like I'm broken, just to make some kind of fucking connection, but it was _so much worse_ from the moment you opened that box. It's so clear to me now, as well! You treat her differently. You look at her differently. You take her more seriously! I'm just Titch the tiny persocom but her? She's your _Ivy_. Oh so different! Months of time together since the Event and I'm just a misbehaving, malfunctioning robot… But you don't know her even two days and she's sleeping in your fucking bed, Chris. What the fuck is up with that?!"

"Oh, so what, now you want into my bed as well, do you?" Chris shouted.

"Why not?!" Titch yelled back, throwing Ivy's arms wide. "Look! Look at me! We could be in bed right now! What's to stop us?"

"Jesus christ. Listen to yourself! Titch, this is a scary level of irrationality. I thought there might be some kind of awful, twisted justification for this, but you're just... what, jealous? That's even worse!"

"Well maybe sapience involves irrationality! You humans seem to be good enough at it!" Titch began to sob. "Maybe that's what it means to have feelings! How the fuck should I know, I'm just a p-persocom right?"

"Don't give me that crap! If that were true, by your logic Ivy would be irrational too, but she isn't. Everything she does is perfectly rational to her - even that… that bed thing!" Chris argued back, unsteadily. His head was starting to hurt.

"Of c-course she isn't irrational. I c-configured her didn't I! She's s-still a stock persocom, she isn't-"

"Sapient? That's what you were going to say, right? I see. _Ivy_ is just a machine, but you? _You're_ the special one."

Titch tried to correct him, but he interrupted her. "No, I meant-…"

"Admit it! You're unbelievable. After you gave me all that shit before, as well. You said it couldn't be both ways. Now all of a sudden you're trying to tell me I should draw the line at whether or not the persocom in question is you!" Chris shouted.

"B-But, the virus-"

"Fuck the virus! Other than your batshit-crazy behaviour, I've seen little difference between the two of you! I promised to take you _both_ seriously! But guess what, Titch: this is too much. You want my serious assessment of this? It's psychotic! I'd never dream you were capable of something like this. You know what? Maybe there really is something wrong with you. Maybe you _are_ broken!"

Titch gasped through Ivy's body, her expression a mix of anger and betrayal.

"Could you not humour me... Just this once? You couldn't do me that favour? So I could at least pretend you gave a shit?" she asked bitterly, her voice trembling on the limits of self-control.

Chris refused to play this game. If she stopped this nonsense, then they could talk like bloody adults. Maybe. Assuming he could stand to even look at her.

"Humour this? How could I ever humour this? Are you fucking kidding me? It's disgusting. _You're_ disgusting. Let Ivy go, _now_." He demanded.

Titch looked like he had slapped her in the face. She shook Ivy's head, as if to ward away his words, but they sank too deeply, and her face crumpled in anguish. "Fine! Come and get her!" she screamed, leaping off the sofa and running into the hallway, heading for the stairs. It surprised Chris so much he took a moment to give chase, and when he did it was because he was terrified of what she might do.

"TITCH! DON'T! Oof!" Chris lost his balance and crashed into the bottom of the staircase. He could hardly see a fucking thing - Titch hadn't turned on the lights! He cursed the alcohol and leapt up the remaining stairs as Titch slammed the bedroom door. Clearing the landing in three long strides, he burst into the bedroom only to hear her slam and lock the door to the en-suite.

"TITCH!" he shouted, striding across the room and rattling the door handle. He heard her opening the window, the noise of the storm increasing. He tried frantically to twist the lock open from the outside, but couldn't get a purchase on the smooth metal nut, and in a panic he threw his body at the door, ignoring the pain he still felt from the other day. Powerfully sharp sensations lanced through his shoulder as he hit the door again and the frame splintered. One more time, as the doorframe broke inwards. He stumbled into the bathroom, finding her trying to climb out of the window into the black void beyond. The rain waited for her there, its downpour loud and threatening, thick droplets blowing through the opening. Leaning forward, she prepared to fall.

Chris hurled himself at Ivy's body, throwing his arms around her and dragging her off the windowsill at the last second. She struggled furiously, but he held her tight, stumbling and bringing them crashing to the floor. His mind raged at him, furiously demanding that he shout and scream at her for what she had done, for what she was about to do, but he willed himself with all his might to lay there and wait.

Titch kept trying to free herself, pulling at his hands and fingers, pushing and scrabbling at the floor. When it became clear she was immobilised by his arms, she whimpered, making pathetic attempts to kiss him again, but he held his head away and she was powerless to do anything. Finally sensing defeat she relaxed, sinking into his arms as she began to cry in earnest; it was a keening, pitiful sound.

"_I... h-hate you..._" she sobbed quietly.

"That's enough, now. I just want you to stop. That's all. Just stop." Chris said with forced calm, holding her still. For the first time that night, she seemed to listen. Wrapped in his firm embrace, she buried her head in his chest, savouring his touch. "W-Why couldn't it be like this?" she whispered.

They lay there together in silence for several long seconds, accompanied by the sound of the pouring rain, before Chris felt Ivy's body fall limp.

"Titch? Titch!" Chris said, shaking her gently. "Titch, can you hear me?"

The persocom slowly opened her eyes, looking up at him. "Mmnnn…"

"Ivy! Are you ok?"

She stirred as she regained control of her faculties, and quickly began to struggle. "Let go of me. Let go!" he let her go at once and she scrambled away from him, huddling a short distance away. Raindrops dripped from the ends of her hair, pooling around her legs.

"Ivy, Titch -"

"I know." She said, hugging herself as she sat on the floor. "I saw everything." Her eyes were wide open in dismay, and she shied away from him, not making eye contact.

Chris heard a little bell tinkle its way along the corridor downstairs, and he leapt to his feet. Of course; a wireless link... but how had she initiated it?

"I'm so sorry. I'll be back soon." he said, running out of the room as Ivy nodded quietly.

"Titch! Titch!" Chris shouted angrily, jumping clumsily down the stairs. She'd headed for the kitchen, and he knew where she was going next. "You stay where you are! Don't you dare!"

Chris slipped on the third-lowest stair, sliding down the rest to hit the ground with a pained grunt, but he immediately got to his feet and hurried after her. She had already disappeared through the old cat-flap in the back door, vanishing into the storm. He flicked on the lights and ripped open one of the kitchen draws, scrabbling for the door key. Using it to unlock and pull open the back door, he followed her outside.

The back garden was practically invisible at this time of night, but he scanned it with his eyes anyway, desperately searching for Titch. What was she playing at, now? Was she running away? Was she getting further from him every second? He called for her for some minutes, peering worriedly into the bushes and foliage, but the pounding of rain on wet leaves and grass was all he could hear in reply, and he couldn't keep the water from his eyes. Drenched and defeated and still concerned for Ivy, he was eventually forced to go back inside the house.

Ivy was waiting for him in the kitchen, holding a towel. She was dressed again and blushing intensely, her hair still slick and jeans damp from her time in the open window.

"Did you find her?" she asked, a strange edge to her voice. She still wouldn't look at him.

"No… are you okay?"

She didn't reply.

"I'm so sorry, Ivy." he said, trying to think of something comforting. "Look... You need to know that none of this is your fault."

Ivy handed him the towel wordlessly and walked briskly away.

"Ivy? Wait a second. Ivy!"

There was no response. Chris heard the door to the lounge close quietly. He growled in frustration as he towelled himself off, a thumping ache blooming inside his head. Titch was out there somewhere in the pouring rain, doing who-knows-what in her current state. Ivy was apparently extremely upset with him and/or Titch, if not traumatised, and he himself felt worried, ashamed and furious all at the same time. That was way too many emotions to feel at once! A normal bloody week is all he'd wanted, not ten thick layers of bullshit. This was fucking ridiculous.

There was nothing he could do to find Titch in this weather, and he thought it best not to pester Ivy. It was clear she really didn't want to be around him right then, and come to think of it, he couldn't really countenance being in the same room as her, either. Besides, tomorrow was a work day, and he needed rest. Wearily, he walked upstairs and flopped into bed to salvage some sleep.

As if he could.


	13. Chapter 13

Chris woke slowly, his senses evolving into his awareness over the course of several seconds. He rolled over, blinking sleepily at the clock on his bedside table and swearing croakily under his breath. After last night's drama he'd meant to set the alarm to go off in time for work, but it appeared he'd forgotten and overslept. He hadn't needed that clock in years; it would normally be Titch who woke him up. He rubbed his eyes, thoughts and emotions from last night thundering back into his mind. It caused a pang of anger and worry as he thought about the little persocom, but it was quickly replaced with the unwelcome lurching queasiness and wooden head of his brand new hangover.

What the hell was last night about? It didn't make any sense... that only served to highlight how little he knew about Titch's mind, now. Were other people beginning to experience this with their persocoms? He didn't know. Nobody told them anything, in the company. Just do the job. Let them worry about the details. Compartmentalise. That was their way.

There was enough daylight seeping through the curtains to see, which was fortunate since the lights were off. Titch would've turned them on, if she were there. He got up, listening to the silent house as he wearily dressed and wondering if he shouldn't try to look for her again. Dressing was uncomfortable now, as it was difficult to ignore his complaining body. Forcing his way through the bathroom door yesterday had done him no favours on top of his aches and pains from the store. Once finished, he wandered uncertainly out of the room. Work would need to wait a little longer; It was time to find Ivy. He couldn't avoid her forever, it would be best to talk to her now… Assuming she was even here any more.

Slowly Chris walked down the stairs. He was relieved to discover Ivy sat on the sofa in the lounge, but the feeling faded away when he realised she was looking out the window with unfocused eyes. Her hair was no tidier than it had been last night, simply having been left to dry in something of a tangled mess. She seemed thoroughly unsettled. Considering what happened, that was understandable. Chris realised he was staring.

_Say something, you idiot._

"Um… morning." he managed, wincing internally at his own stupidity.

"Why do you think she did it?" Ivy said immediately, not looking away from the window. Chris walked a little further into the room.

"You tell me, I really didn't see that coming. She was upset with me. With both of us. Maybe she didn't know how to handle that." he replied, feeling more than a little useless. He doubted Ivy was satisfied with that answer, and if she was, she gave no such indication.

"I couldn't do anything." Ivy said, her gaze unmoving. "I couldn't control myself. All I could do was watch what she did to me..."

Chris shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. "I can't imagine what that was like. It... must have been horrible."

Ivy didn't reply, and Chris couldn't help but feel extremely glad he realised it had been Titch last night. All the same, he wished he'd known sooner; it still felt like he'd wronged Ivy, somehow. "Ivy, if I'd known it was Titch…" …he'd have what? Not-kissed her sooner? Had that fight and nearly got her thrown out a window a little bit quicker? Magically discovered where Titch hid her own body and made her sever the connection?

The room fell into silence, and every second of the next minute seemed to stretch on forever before Ivy spoke again.

"Something's wrong with me. Something feels different." she said, finally looking at him. Her calm words were at odds with the expression in her eyes.

Chris sighed. "I'm sorry, Ivy. That'll be the virus. Titch would have had to have cabled herself to you to manually initiate the wireless connection. Now that you've interfaced with her, you'll be infected."

"I see." she said. Chris watched as she picked up the cushion beside her, looking at it thoughtfully. A moment later, she hurled it at the window with a shout. It bounced harmlessly off the glass and landed on the floor.

"Do you want to... talk?" Chris said, taken aback.

"Maybe." Ivy grated. "I feel wrong. This is all wrong!" she clutched at her head, whining. "It doesn't feel normal. My thoughts aren't like before. I can't control them."

Chris frowned in concern. "What do you mean?"

"This! I mean this!" Ivy yelled, pointing at herself. "What the fuck is this? Why am I yelling?"

"I really don't understand-" Chris began, and Ivy almost squirmed in frustration as she tried to explain.

"You didn't understand last night either, remember? Because I do! Argh! Sorry… this isn't me. This isn't my ESC, it can't be. I don't know what this is! It's horrible! Make it stop!"

"Ivy, it's probably the virus. It... it changes the way you think," he said gently. "I'm afraid that's all we really know. That's exactly the kind of thing we're trying to find out."

"But why do I feel… _this_?"

"I don't know, Ivy... Look, you went through a lot last night, maybe between that and the past few days… I'd guess you're just a little overwhelmed, it's a bit much, you know?" Chris said. He certainly felt overwhelmed, himself. He didn't know what to think or feel right then. But this was not enough for the frustrated persocom.

"I don't! I don't know, that's the problem! I should know WHY I'm feeling something!" Ivy sounded exasperated, as if she'd been considering this at length with no satisfactory resolution.

"That's not how it works, Ivy..."

"Yes it is! That's exactly how it works!" she argued. "When I have a feeling it makes sense, there always a reason for it. Confused and curious because of something new. Scared of something dangerous. Happy, because of… But this? This is completely senseless. I've gone over everything and none of it fits. There is no correlating data at all, I'm just... _feeling_."

"That's what feelings are, sometimes. You don't generally get to control them, it's just how you feel. It's just how it is." Chris said gently.

"Well if that's true then why wasn't it always like this?" Ivy demanded. It was an interesting question.

"Perhaps your ESC works differently. Neurologic processors are more like neural synapses than traditional logic devices. The software they run constantly affects how they interact, like wiring a mind in different ways."

"I don't know what any of that means, Chris!" Ivy groaned in frustration. She was exaggerating, but Chris understood.

"You probably just think a little bit differently now. It doesn't have to be a bad thing - for you, since you already were so emotionally capable, maybe it's more like a change in perspective than a complete evolution of your thought processes. Does that make more sense?"

Ivy calmed down slightly, considering the idea but not looking convinced. "Yes... a little."

"Maybe we should talk to Sarah about it next time she's around, she could probably answer your questions, she knows way more about this stuff than I do."

"…Who's Sarah?"

"A friend. You'll like her, she's really nice."

" I've heard that name before. Is she a persocom?"

Were the circumstances better, Chris might have chuckled. "No, she's human. But she'd understand, and I reckon she'd be happy to help. For the time being, would it at least help knowing that people feel things without clear reason sometimes, too? Because many of us often can't justify or explain our own feelings."

"...Yes." she said. "So this... this happens to you?"

"Exactly, sometimes it does." Chris said. "In fact if I'm being honest, it's happening to me right now, " he thought Ivy's expression seemed empathetic, at that, "a lot has happened in little more than a weekend. Too much. But that's the thing: people often feel things they can't necessarily explain or justify. They usually learn to accept it, or if that's not possible, they try to do something about it. That might just be trying to think about something else, or it could be doing something fun or otherwise distracting, or talking to someone about it, even if they don't know what to say."

"So that's why Titch did it. She couldn't accept her feelings." Ivy said quietly.

"I guess… Yeah." Chris replied, fighting a crushing sensation of guilt. What Titch did was despicable, true. In fact he was pretty sure there was a word for what she had attempted to do to them, and he wasn't sure it was forgivable. But he never really considered what drove her to do it, or whether she could even appreciate what she was doing. Maybe that proved her right, in some small way. Maybe he hadn't cared enough since she started to change. The revelation did nothing for Ivy either, who now looked more miserable than ever.

He sat down next to her on the sofa, struggling for something comforting to say. "Listen… You're probably a little in shock. You were in a stable state where you were comfortable with yourself, and then suddenly you get this virus. But it's not the same virus we were dealing with months ago. It's already evolved way past that. You didn't get to transition slowly, you've just jumped right in the deep end. That's going to be difficult no matter what. Allow yourself some time to adjust, okay?"

Ivy seemed to accept this, but something was still bothering her. "I have a question," she said quietly. Chris nodded for her to continue. "When you were arguing, Titch said something. She said '_she's still a stock persocom_'…" Chris knew where this was going, "I thought, back in the store, the things she was saying there - and back home afterwards - but then last night… Did she actually think… was I not… real... before?"

Chris resisted the urge to run his hands through his hair. This was not the kind of question he wanted to deal with right now. Not when barely two days ago both persocoms were determined to prove that very point after he had steadfastly rejected it. To finally accept it was one thing, but to be defending it so soon felt in some way hypocritical, as if he didn't hadn't yet earned the right to take that position. This was making his headache worse. He thought over a response, taking his time before replying.

"…Chris?" Ivy pressed, worried at his silence.

"It's okay… Let me answer your question with a question: am _I _real? Am I self-aware?"

"Yes, of course." Ivy said, confused.

"Why yes? How do you know if I am? How do you know if humans in general are? Do you have any evidence to substantiate that claim?"

Ivy seemed to chew this over, the results surprising her. "…I guess I don't."

"Neither do we, really." Chris said. "We just accept that we are self-aware. It is generally agreed to be an awareness of one's personality or individuality. It's the capacity for introspection. Well, what do you think you were doing just now? Panicking about what's going on inside your head, right? Comparing your feelings before and after the virus? How is that not introspective?"

"But how is it not just a programmed response? My ESC was a program. This virus is a program." Ivy's words mirrored the exact lines of thought Chris used to follow. He forced himself to answer.

"A fair question. But depending on where you draw the line, so is my DNA. That genetic code governs the structure of my brain, and the cells within it operate according to the behaviours defined in that code. Yet still, I feel like I am self aware. And here's the interesting thing; that same structure, that same concept, is shared with insects, plants and even single-celled organisms. But we certainly don't consider those to be self-aware. So maybe it's less about the system configuration and more about the results."

"Thank you." Ivy murmured. She seemed a little relieved. "But Titch didn't think I was real, did she? She just used me to get to you."

"Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps she didn't think _she_ was real, before the virus. Therefore, you couldn't be either as far as she was concerned. It's a little different for Titch, because she never had an ESC. Her neurologic processors were there for true-random decision-making, pattern recognition and data processing tasks such as machine-vision, all of which conventional hardware struggles to do efficiently. Her personality matrix was simple and hard-coded. Now though, she's able to have all these complicated thoughts and feelings that were impossible for her before, without the virus. If she feels that way about you, it's not surprising."

"It's still disgusting." Ivy wrapped her hands around her body, hugging herself. "I don't understand how she could do that to me, either way."

Chris couldn't reply to that. He didn't know how; after all, he didn't understand it either. And if he never saw Titch again, he never would. He couldn't decide how he felt about that just then. Miserable? Angry?

Relieved?

"What were you thinking?" Ivy asked, interrupting his contemplation. "When I… when Titch kissed you?"

"Oh…ahem," Chris cleared his throat. "I really don't know how to answer that. I woke up and all of a sudden, there you were… you know… and the things you - uh, Titch - was saying… I guess it was confusing?"

"…Just confusing?" she looked at him blankly.

"Well, uh… I'm sorry, where are you going with this?"

"Just trying to understand, that's all." Ivy replied quietly. The room fell into uncomfortable silence once more. Chris felt the urgent need to be elsewhere.

"Anyway, it's a workday, I better…"

"Oh… right…"

"I'll be upstairs. If you need anything, just come get me OK?"

"S-same to you."

"Great. Okay. Well… okay." Chris clapped his hands together, getting up and leaving the room. He hurried upstairs, hitting himself in the forehead with his knuckles and grimacing.

_You're a frigging moron, you know._

* * *

Chris squatted in his seat before the terminal, quietly hating himself while the display flickered into life. Today was going to be shit, he could feel it. It was shit already, even. How was he going to get anything done without Titch? She practically managed his whole work day. She wasn't necessarily supposed to - it was just something she wound up doing in recent months, opinionated as she had become; but now, he felt useless without her.

Well, he could start by reading the angry messages his supervisor would have left him. NEIS tracked login times for their home-working employees, but it was up to the managerials to decide what to do with that data, and generally their approach would be to turn a blind eye in lieu of more important things. His supervisor, however was an insufferable jobsworth who _loved_ to watch those numbers.

Chris fired up the email client, authenticating against his password. A long list of messages filled the display, and he began to trawl through them, ignoring the drudgery of mail-shot adverts from suppliers, mailing lists he'd long stopped caring about, and miscellaneous group discussions from outside his team for which he was needlessly on copy. Interestingly, there was not a single message from his supervisor. Perhaps he would have tried to call, instead. A feeling of dread yawned wide in his stomach at that thought - that call would've gone straight to the angry little persocom outside.

In a sudden stroke of inspiration, he opened up the composition window and typed a new message.

_From: C . Barker_

_To: C . Barker_

_Subject: WHERE ARE YOU_

_Titch, I know you're reading this. Please come home. I won't leave things as they are, we need to talk._

He hit send and watched as the email looped back into his inbox. For the briefest moment it flickered to a message-read state, before switching back to unopened.

Chris growled. Childish bloody behaviour. Well, what could he expect, after last night? She was completely mental, for all he knew. At the very least, it seemed she was unharmed. Enough to read emails and pretend she hadn't, anyway. He couldn't think about her selfishness now. He had to get on with the day.

Maybe he should take advantage of his supervisor's lapse of attention and try actually being productive. He fired up the integrated development environment and pulled the latest version of the Interpreter from the team repository. It looked unchanged from Friday; nobody had committed any updates, it seemed. He probably wasn't about to start either, since he didn't have Titch to work with, but perhaps he could peruse the code and hope for ideas that way. As distractions went it was fairly crappy, but at least it gave him something else to think about.

He stared absent-mindedly at the selection of behavioural operations that appeared before him. Neurologic processors didn't run conventional code. They could translate and interpret it, certainly, but their native architecture was wildly different to conventional computers. Software was written as clusters of concurrent behaviours, their outputs and any native data amalgamated such that the desired results were produced. There were parallels to the way you might configure an old field-programmable gate array -configurable logic chips often used to prototype new designs- except those only ran rigid, hard-wired, clock-controlled operations, while neurologic architectures responded in an orderless stimulatory fashion, activity growing and cascading organically through their structure like groups of firing neurones.

Chris opened up a grouping entitled "NBG_TL_VCHook", and the screen expanded smoothly, filling with the various software modules that comprised his selection. The Interpreter was always having trouble keeping its grip on the viral code. Perhaps if he checked this section for the millionth time, he would find something amiss.

A few hours passed uneventfully, by which time Chris was in a foul mood. What good was staring at this stupid software going to do? He felt like he was watching paint dry. This was ridiculous. He could barely concentrate with this headache and his stomach still felt like crap. He hadn't so much as thought of coffee yet, let alone taken the time to drink one. Well, it was time to change that! He shoved the chair away from the table and strode grumpily to the door, pulling it open and almost blundering straight into Ivy as she crossed the landing. The persocom wore only a wet towel; apparently she'd been using the shower. For the briefest electric instant their eyes met, but Ivy didn't even slow down, sidestepping him and hurrying along to the spare bedroom before disappearing behind the door.

Chris blinked, the apology dying on his lips before he had a chance to utter it. That was uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. This was probably the point where Titch would've laughed or made a sarcastic comment at his expense. Persocoms did need to be cleaned on occasion, of course, but when it came to Ivy he hadn't really given it any thought, so it seemed surprising. And had she adopted that room as her own, now? That room was hardly suitable, he'd need to sort it out for her. He continued across the landing, walking quietly down the stairs and somehow managing to feel ashamed all over again. Of all the poor timing... argh! He would make coffee in the kettle and just drink from that. Maybe the dangerous levels of caffeine would help! Maybe he would just run away like Titch and start a new life under a rock somewhere!

_For fuck's sake, Titch. Look at the trouble you've caused. And you're the one who gets to run away from the fallout!_

The kettle popped and wheezed lethargically, reluctantly heating its water. Chris stared distractedly at an empty mug as he waited. Actually, a holiday would be nice. Maybe on an island somewhere. Or a forest. Perhaps one of those underwater hotels, where you only had a subsea room with an air supply and ocean life for company. Or just about anywhere else with no electricity, computers, people or persocoms.

He heard footsteps padding into the room behind him. Ivy crossed the kitchen, wearing more of his clothes; this time an old jumper and a pair of jeans he was sure would have fallen straight off her, had she not improvised with a belt. Even the belt itself was too large; she had tied it around her waist, unable to use the buckle. She studied the washing machine quietly, examining the controls with her one and only set of clothes bundled in her hands. Her hair was still damp, but cleaner now, her tresses no longer tangled and messy.

"Thirty degrees doesn't work," Chris said, trying to be helpful. He'd been meaning to fix that bloody thing. "It won't spin, you have to wash at fourty."

"Thanks." Ivy said quietly, shoving the clothes inside. Did she blush, slightly? The conversation died immediately as she went rifling through the nearby cupboard for the detergent, so he tried again.

"Um... your new clothes should arrive today." Chris said. That was right; they'd be delivered before the end of the evening, probably.

"That's… great." Ivy said, setting the machine to run and walking awkwardly away. Chris rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling as he waited for the kettle to click. He grabbed the handle, remembering his resolution to drink from it and finding the idea of that much coffee genuinely tempting, but poured the water into the mug anyway.

Chris drank deeply while he walked back up the stairs, as if every caffeinated mouthful would help wash away his problems. When he reached the spare bedroom, he paused. The door was closed. After a moment's hesitation, he knocked and entered.

It had been a while since he'd been in here; months, to his memory. The room wasn't empty - far from it, in fact. There were plenty of boxes full of old electronics, equipment and personal possessions stacked around the walls, although it looked a little neater than he remembered. Ivy must have been here during the first night, organising or cataloguing things. Some items were too heavy for her to move; she appeared to have left those alone. The persocom sat cross-legged in the middle of the carpet. She was looking up at him uncertainly; all the confidence and energy she usually radiated was gone.

Ivy had no possessions of her own to speak of, but had managed to source a tired-looking brush, a few towels, and a small selection of his old clothes from the surrounding boxes. These items were arranged neatly on the floor beside her, and seeing her sat helplessly beside them made her presence in the room seem all the more pitiful. It didn't appear she was doing anything in particular… Was she planning on just sitting there all day, alone? He instantly felt bad for her. To leave her like this felt emphatically neglectful, and he regretted not taking notice sooner.

"I need you," he found himself saying, gently extending a hand. "Would you mind?"

Ivy took it cautiously, getting to her feet. He lead her into the office and sat her down in a spare chair. This would be better than her sitting in that room.

"I want to ask if you would mind helping me work." He said tactfully, sitting down by the terminal. "I'm trying to figure out how this virus operates, and if you helped you'd be doing me a big favour… is that okay?"

Ivy appeared to consider this for a moment. "What do I need to do?" she asked.

"Thanks, Ivy. I appreciate it." Chris smiled, and she smiled weakly back. He began to explain the process as he reached for a cable that Ivy could use to connect to the system, but stopped when he noticed her fearful expression. Ivy was looking at the cable like it was a venomous snake.

"…How about you just look at the code with me?" he suggested, tucking the cable away. Ivy nodded gratefully, scooting closer to the terminal. He began to show her the development software, explaining the way the interface worked, and the structure of the code inside.

* * *

Chris walked back into the office armed with his third cup of coffee. Ivy was glued to the terminal, her deep and colourful eyes scanning the output with interest. It seemed to be an effective distraction from the previous night - for both of them, in fact. Just watching her occupied with the terminal was enough to raise his spirits a little. Ivy was by no means her usual self, but it appeared her curiosity could not be stopped. She had many questions, and he answered them with an enthusiasm that grew on her as they explored the software together.

"So this section governs the identification of the viral code… and this one tracks its pathway through memory to establish any patterns…" Ivy muttered, mousing around the various modules in the IDE. She learned rapidly, and was quickly building an understanding of the way the Interpreter was designed to function.

"That's right," Chris said, standing beside her chair and leaning over to look at the screen. "This is one of the most difficult parts of the procedure, because it has to adapt to the way the virus moves through memory, and follow it for hooking."

"How come you can scan for the signature rapidly enough to recapture it every time it moves?" Ivy asked, "Isn't that like trying to find a needle in a haystack? And the needle moves constantly!"

Chris nodded, "It's worse, theoretically, because you'd need to check every last piece of memory until you found a recognisable signature, and then do it all over again every time it moved. But we have a distinct advantage with neurologic architecture, so we don't have to. Instead of exhaustively testing memory in sequence, the search for that signature propagates through the processor network like branches expanding on a tree," He spread his hands apart to illustrate the effect, "If a processor contains matching signatures, it fires in response, and the location is known. It's how most memory retrieval works on the platform, we're just using it to cheat a little. Once we've found the signature, we can track it because the processors will fire on detecting its presence in their local stores, but," Chris held up a cautionary hand, "This doesn't mean it's easy to track. It's still a pseudo-random process and it's not enough to just know where it is, we need to already be sampling for data when it arrives, and our program needs to be in the right processors at the right time to do that. That's why we must establish a pattern, so we can guess where it's trying to go next and try to get there in time."

"That's amazing," Ivy said, incredulous, "But how can this possibly work? I couldn't access my processors at such a low level."

"You don't need to; the Interpreter is operating within its own program context just like everything else, so you don't really need to be aware of register-level activity for it to work. It's only reading the contents of processor memory - again, any normal software can do that - and it reports its findings back to the terminal. You could think of it like an fMRI scan for humans... uh, that's a medical procedure. The brain keeps working as usual but the right medical equipment can image the patterns of the neurones firing in real time, and we can use that to recognise and differentiate between thought processes and behaviour."

Ivy glanced at the cable, half tucked away behind the terminal. She seemed to be struggling with her own curiosity and an apparent fear of letting anything else connect to her after what Titch had done.

"You don't need to do that, Ivy." Chris reassured her, "It's helpful enough just to go through code with you. Any programmer will tell you it's useful to explain their software to an audience."

"Titch would though, wouldn't she?" Ivy said quietly, and Chris felt the atmosphere heading towards discomfort again.

"…Yes, she would. We've worked on this every day, almost, for the last few months."

"What did she think of it? Of the virus?"

"She wouldn't really talk about it directly. Honestly, I think she was fairly comfortable with it. Maybe even liked it. Of course to begin with it wasn't even a question - in the first several weeks of infection she really wasn't very different to her factory self. I doubt she felt anything about the matter back then."

"...What was she like, before?" Ivy said, turning from the screen to look at him.

"Very different." Chris sighed, sitting down opposite his persocom. "I wouldn't know where to begin."

"How about when you first met her?" Ivy prompted. Did she really want to talk about Titch? He tried to gauge her expression, getting a feel for why she might be asking, but her gaze was neutral.

"Ah, you don't want to hear all that." he said, waving his hand dismissively, but sure enough she pressed for the answer.

"Please?"

Chris sighed, taking a drink from his coffee and nodding as he began to explain.


	14. Chapter 14

Chris walked eagerly through the massive entrance of NEIS headquarters, following the inward flux of other employees. Before him lay a short and brightly lit tunnel, two stories high and perhaps seventy feet long, which allowed him to pass beneath the offices that encircled the outer wall. His footsteps and those of the others echoed against walls emblazoned with huge renditions of the NEIS company logo.

The corridor yawned open into an enormous, elaborate atrium, illuminated by the elegant skylights far above. There were lights up there too, discreetly integrated into the curved framework of the exposed roof substructure, which itself comprised a lattice of smooth white supporting beams stretching across the expansive space. The lights shifted hue and brightness in response to the cloudy sky beyond, augmenting the natural light to appear like that of a sunny day.

Once inside, Chris drank in the scene before him. The circular atrium wound its way into the distance on either side, disappearing from view. It must run around the entire building! Glass lifts glided serenely between the various floors that extended from the inner wall - Chris counted about seven floors, in all - and busy employees and persocoms could be seen on the walkways, hurriedly going about their day. It looked less like a business and more like some sort of massive, luxurious shopping centre.

Chris couldn't help the gigantic grin on his face. His first day. Oh, this was exciting! He could hardly believe he was here. How had he passed the interview stages, fresh out of University as he was? Sure, it was something of an entry-level job as far as this company was concerned, but still... there must have been stronger applicants. Well, his example of a flexible AI core for game engines - his final project for the course - must have impressed someone enough to be worth consideration.

He walked across the open tiled floor, heading for the large oval-shaped island which appeared to comprise the building's reception desk. It was oddly minimalist for such a thing, with every surface clean and clear of clutter; there were none of the usual papers, stationary, letter trays or office equipment one might expect to find tucked away inside its circumference. Instead only a handful of people seemed to sit within it, perched on stylish chrome accented pedestals and calmly watching the morning unfold before them.

"Uh, hi! Chris Barker," Chris said happily, introducing himself to the nearest one, a pretty female receptionist dressed in a sharp suit. Her jet black hair was tied into a long ponytail that waved lazily as she turned to look at him, and her eyes were almost swallowed by bangs that stopped short of her eyebrows. She smiled back at him warmly as he spoke, "I'm starting today, I'm here to see Mr Ashburn?"

"Welcome, Chris!" the receptionist beamed. "My name is Mika. It's very nice to have you here! One moment, please." Her eyes flashed briefly, and Chris realised she was in fact a persocom. She had human ears, he'd assumed… he glanced at the others behind the desk. Were they persocoms too?

"LOKI confirms your appointment." Mika smiled, regaining his attention. "Please head for reception room 5. It's on the ground floor, inner wall, just a minute in that direction." she pointed to his left. "Mr Ashburn will be with you shortly."

"LOKI?" Chris said, curious.

"LOKI is the building's mainframe." the persocom explained cheerily. "You'll meet him soon, I'm sure."

Chris thanked her and wandered away along the curvature of the atrium, looking for the reception room. People and persocoms continued to stream into the building from the entrance, their footfall crowding his path, but the room didn't take long to find - about a minute, like Mika said - and Chris soon found himself standing amongst an assembly of empty seats. It was dark in there; the few spot-lamps in the ceiling cast a dim, warm glow that was sufficient to find a seat, but good for little else.

The moment Chris sat down, the lights cycled lower still and an image flickered into life on the walls surrounding the room. It showed a plain open field outside of town. From the buildings he could see, it couldn't have been far from this place… in fact, maybe it _was_ this place, way back when.

"Welcome," a deep, disembodied male voice filled the room, making Chris jump. "We're glad you've chosen to join NEIS; one of the UK's leading persocom manufacturing and design companies. Please take a moment to enjoy this short introduction to our family."

The NEIS logo appeared on the screen, its letters expanding out to reveal the full name: _Neuro-Electrical Intelligence Solutions_. The voice continued its narrative as the image smoothly cut to an infographic video that followed its words.

"NEIS is an industry leader in persocom technology, with a broad patent portfolio encompassing the spectrum of advanced robotics design. Founded over 50 years ago, NEIS started out as a manufacturer of robotic hardware for the UK's resurgent industrial market, supplying intelligent tools for factory production lines and material processing plants."

Various videos of old NEIS hardware operating in assembly lines covered the walls; Chris spotted applications in automotive welding and painting, package sorting, quality control, mechanical assembly, and many others he didn't recognise.

"NEIS hardware stood apart from the competition, leveraging the most advanced AI technology of the time to produce products capable of intelligent decision-making and enhanced autonomy. Companies deploying NEIS autorobotic tools saw dramatic increases in productivity, reduced maintenance costs and improved health and safety due to these capable machines."

The screen filled with the view of an engineering lab - engineers were hunched over terminals in front of a metallic humanoid form tethered to an overhead dolly via support chains and power cables. The robot clumped unsteadily around the room, circumnavigating the various obstacles within.

"As the world continued to mature technologically, NEIS was quick to see the potential of humanoid robotics, turning its massive R&D resources towards developing a range of products which could reliably supplant human workers in situations which were dangerous, or otherwise unfavourable. A rapid shift took place in the market as competitors moved to adopt the same approach."

"When the concept of persocoms emerged overseas, NEIS was quick to react again, seeing potential in the development of neurologic technology and something people at the time referred to as 'True AI'. This led to the formation of EN-SIG - the European Neurologic Special Interest Group, where NEIS and other leaders in robotics and computing pooled their resources to realise the potential of the neurologic concept. For NEIS it also led to the development of the first commercial persocoms for sale in the UK. Other companies were quick to release their own models, and the competition was fierce. Clearly the concept of humanoid computers was wildly popular with the public." Chris looked at the crowd of early persocom units which were now displayed around the room. They looked a little strange compared to today's models. Somewhat chunkier, and less lifelike.

"And so we arrive at the present day." the voice continued. "NEIS still supplies British industry with the intelligent robotics hardware they require, but today its major product is commercial persocom units for home and business applications, and the market is ever-growing."

The NEIS logo faded in as the rest of the image dissolved away, leaving the walls blank.

"Thank you for listening. You have picked an excellent time to join the revolution. Now you too can help spearhead the improvement of our future. Your tour of the company is about to begin." the voice finished with an air of self-satisfaction as the lights rose to a more practical brightness. Those closing lines almost seemed tacked on as an afterthought, as if the voice felt at the last minute Chris might benefit from some motivational words. A second voice from the back of the room prevented Chris from considering the presentation further.

"The sales pitch never gets boring. LOKI likes to fiddle with the presentation every time we have visitors." Chris turned to see a short, stocky man in a black NEIS polo shirt standing by the door, accompanied by a slim woman with rounded protrusions for ears that gave her away as a persocom. Their hair was an exact matching shade of mousy brown, although the persocom's curved neatly around her face to end before her shoulders, while the man's was tousled and chaotic.

"Chris Barker," Chris said, walking around the chairs and extending his hand. "Nice to meet you!" The man shook it heartily, clasping his hand in a firm grip.

"James Ashburn," he replied. "Wonderful, wonderful. It's a pleasure. And this here is Holly. She's the reason I haven't been fired yet." he laughed, affectionately throwing an arm around the persocom's shoulders. They were almost exactly the same height too, it seemed… Maybe Holly was a little taller. It was hard to tell, since her heels put her a couple of inches above him anyway.

"I am Mr Ashburn's personal assistant. Pleased to meet you." Holly said politely. Chris shook her hand when she extended it, returning the greeting.

"Assistant, she says! Holly understates things a little… I swear she pretty much runs my whole life now! Anyway, shall we get started?" James released her and gestured for Chris to follow as Holly held open the door. They walked back into the atrium, following the curvature of the wall as James continued the introduction.

"So I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I'm what we call a Mechatronics Engineer. My responsibilities revolve around the CAD and CAM processes employed by the factory in manufacturing persocom components. This encompasses everything from the design of parts of the chassis and ensuring their feasibility, to getting them past the production process, all the way through to testing the finished components in their assemblies. If everything fits and/or moves how it's supposed to and nothing is on fire by the end of the process, I have done my job properly." He chuckled and gestured to Holly. "My delightful Holly is critically important to this process. Absolutely critical, you understand. Officially, she is only here to help me in any capacity that might be beneficial to my productivity. But you see, _unofficially_, she also keeps me sane, prevents me from wandering absent-mindedly into unfamiliar parts of the building, reminds me to eat and to tuck my shirt in... you know, all the things a functioning adult should be capable of doing on their own. Needless to say the unofficial stuff is _vital_."

"Thank you, James." Holly said dryly. "That was succinctly put."

"Why butter it, dear? Why butter it? I love our little arrangement, it's the best. You're the best." They continued along the atrium floor. James would occasionally wave enthusiastically at someone as they passed. He seemed to exist in his own little bubble of irrepressible cheeriness.

"The tour is divided into several parts." Holly explained as they strode towards one of the glass lifts, weaving their way through pedestrian traffic. "First, a review of the office structure where we acquaint you with the layout. Next, we shall tour the production facilities in the heart of the building complex. There will then be a break for lunch, after which we resume with a trip to see LOKI. You will finish early for the day, to allow time to acquaint yourself with your new persocom."

"...My… persocom?" Chris stuttered. Those were expensive… he was brand new here… really? Just like that?

"Software developers are required to have a NEIS persocom for their work. You will understand more during your team induction, but in short it is necessary to have a platform for testing the software you will be developing."

Chris blinked… well, that would thoroughly trump the simple keychain unit he had in his pocket right now.

"Excited, Chris?" James asked, grinning at Chris when he nodded. "You're a lucky guy landing a job in Software Dev, though if I'm honest you look much too normal for that looney bin."

"How do you mean?" Chris asked, a little worried. Holly shot a look at James and he seemed to backtrack somewhat, waving a hand as if to wash his last comment away.

"Ahh, I'm only kidding. You'll like it there. S-Dev are rockstars in this company, second-only to Neuro; their work is what makes every product tick. It's just a running joke that they're all a little bit… strange. I think they spend too much time glued to the screens. They should unplug and walk the factory floor more, actually see their hard work being put to use, you know? Maybe visit us lowly plebs in engineering, hahaha!"

They walked into the lift, a spacious oval-shaped affair, but before its glass doors could slide closed they were joined by a group of male persocoms. They could have been identical triplets had they been human, though each wore their hair differently and their level of dress was different. One was clean-cut and formally dressed in a suit. The second, unkempt and untidy in his tattered NEIS workwear. The third was casually dressed, and looked if anything a little bored.

"Oh look, it's the Alphabet. Hello lads!" James said, giving them a cheery wave.

"Morning, James." The tidy one said. "Did you have a good weekend?"

"It doesn't matter, you don't really care anyway." The second said grumpily, before James could reply. James winked at Chris, remaining silent and allowing their conversation to unfold. It appeared all three spoke in exactly the same well-to-do voice and accent.

"Of course I care." the tidy one replied.

"No, you're just being polite." the other retorted.

"It's not a matter of politeness, I'm genuinely interested."

"Don't be ridiculous, you're not genuinely interested in anything. None of us are."

"_I'm_ genuinely interested," the third said, gazing lecherously at Holly, who rolled her eyes as the lift began to move.

"I am not configured to care about that, you know." she said bluntly as she met his gaze. He grinned back unashamedly.

"That's a violation of our workplace code of ethics. You can't say things like that to her." the tidy one admonished him, looking disapprovingly in his direction.

"She's not offended. Besides I can say it to anyone I want, HR can't fire a persocom."

"They can recommend the project lead format you though."

"And ruin years of research? Don't be silly, she would never."

"I'm not being silly, it's true."

"It doesn't matter anyway, none of it matters." the untidy one said, sighing.

"What matters is Holly _still_ hasn't given me her UUID. Holly, please-" the third found his attempt to sidle up beside Holly vanquished by her outstretched hand.

"No." Holly said dismissively.

"Isn't she gorgeous? Isn't she beautiful? Even her hand is pretty!" he continued, but the tidy one gently pulled him away.

"Stop harassing her."

"I'm not harassing her, I was asking her nicely."

"There was nothing nice about it. There's nothing nice about anything, but most especially that." the untidy one sighed.

"Stop being so negative."

"I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic."

"Holly, at least answer my emails!"

The lift chimed as it reached the fifth floor, and the three persocoms wandered out, bickering all the way. Chris could hear their conversation fade into the distance.

"You send twenty per minute every time you think of her, that's not right."

"Well I wouldn't want to smother her!"

"I meant you send too _many_."

"How many should he send?"

"Zero. Zero is a good number."

"But then she'll _never_ talk to me!"

"She doesn't want to anyway! You're boring, like the rest of us."

"You're the boring one, so negative all the time."

"I'm _not_ being negative, I'm being realistic."

"You said that already."

"He always says that."

"I sometimes say it, there's a difference…"

Chris stared after them, and James chuckled at his bewildered expression, speaking again when the lift doors closed. "You found that confusing, huh? What an odd bunch. You know shortly after their creation, they wanted to choose their own names. After much discussion they decided to name themselves A, B and C. Everyone thought it was ridiculous, but it's the only thing they've ever managed to agree on and they were very insistent. That's why we call them the Alphabet. A's the sharp-looking one, B's the miserable guy in the middle, and C is the one with a thing for my Holly." He patted Holly's shoulder with a laugh and she rolled her eyes again.

"Do they… work here?" Chris asked.

"Uh, yeah, in a fashion. They're part of R&D - one of the S-Dev projects on advanced persocom behavioural matrices - that's the software that gives persocoms their personality, ah, but I'm sure you know that. Anyway, they're supposed to herald the next generation of persocom software - something the industry is calling Emotional Software Cortexes - but if you ask me, they're just bonkers. The project has stalled a little these recent months and in the meantime they are pretty much allowed the run of the place. It's not like they can get up to much, since everything they try to do just devolves into an argument." James chuckled at the final sentence, shaking his head. "Sure makes for a good show, though. They're nice enough, even if they are strange. Very strange."

The lift chimed once again, the digital level display above the doors indicating they had reached the seventh floor, and Holly led the way, turning right and heading along the gentle leftward curve of the carpeted walkway.

"Ahh, the offices. Definitely the most riveting part of the tour." James sighed as they walked three-abreast along the spacious path. The traffic was dying down now, most people having already arrived in the building for the start of the day.

"Every new employee must follow the correct orientation procedure." Holly interjected matter-of-factly, deftly avoiding the gentle nudge James aimed at her shoulder. She shook her head disapprovingly. "I wish you would be serious for a minute, James. I still maintain you are a poor choice for a tour guide."

"Lighten up, Holly. We both know you'll do a lot of the talking." he grinned at Chris. "Sorry, Chris. This is all new for you so it will be interesting, I promise. You may have already noticed Holly likes to keep me on my best behaviour. It's a job she does very well, I must say."

"Your productivity improved twenty-three percent in the first week we worked together," Holly reminded him.

"And what a wonderful week it was." James laughed. Holly frowned, looking at him as they walked.

"That statement conflicts with my recollection. According to memory, you tried to lock me in a storage cupboard on the second day."

James looked away. "Ah, yes, well your insistent nature took some getting used to-"

"On the third, you tried to trick me into meeting you on the other side of the complex so you could sneak a cigarette outside with your delinquent friends and have half an hour to yourself. Twice. When that didn't work, you engaged in what can only be described as a grown man's version of hide-and-seek."

"Yes, there was that too I suppose, just a bit of fun-"

"Also, on the fourth day, you insisted that your honorific had been changed from '_Mr_' to '_Lord_', a prank that backfired when I then processed your cell performance reviews on your behalf and upper management got wind of it."

"Hah… yes, well the disciplinary was dropped in the end, so it was worth it…"

"In fact, my analysis would indicate you seemed distinctly put-out that you had been assigned a persocom to assist you with your work - I think the term you once muttered was '_interfering bloody nuisance_'. Are you sure it was a wonderful week?"

"Oh, Holly… Don't be like that, I came around in the end didn't I? Look how inseparable we are now!" James laughed again, before leaning behind Holly's back to pull at his shirt collar and aim a comically relieved expression at Chris, who simply couldn't fathom the man ever having been annoyed at Holly, or indeed anything else.

"I saw that. Here we are," the persocom said, veering left and leading them through a set of double doors. A sign on the door read "_Marketing-755_".

They opened to reveal a room, but its size was hard to gauge, and if it were an office, Chris couldn't tell. Instead of cubicles, there were floor-to-ceiling glass partitions arranged grid-like across the width and breadth of the room. Some appeared transparent, while others were an opaque shade of dark grey. Inside the clear ones Chris could see the desks of various employees; spacious affairs that seemed moulded to the size of the partition boundaries. He almost jumped when one of the opaque partitions appeared to vanish in an eye blink, becoming fully transparent and revealing a man in the process of leaving his desk.

"Liquid crystal technology. Cool, isn't it? Open space if you want one, closed room if you don't." James said proudly.

"That's awesome!" Chris said enthusiastically.

"I know, right? Office employees get to control their own working environment. That kind of freedom increases productivity. That's not all though, you can project video onto the wall interiors from projectors in the ceiling. Some of the nutters in here like to work standing up, others might use them for presentations, and others still like to pretend they're working on a beach or in a forest somewhere. Bit weird if you ask me, but there it is. And in case people feel isolated even with transparency on, the partition acoustic environments can be tied together over the network so you can chat as if you're sat with others in the same room."

Chris looked in fascination at some of the other visible workspaces. Each room would be extremely neat and tidy if it weren't for the massive amount of papers and merchandise piled up inside. Some had odd furniture inside, like gigantic, vibrant bean-bags or squishy chairs. Some objects spilled out into the hallway, where there had been no room for them inside. There were a lot of colours to see. It reminded Chris a little of what one might expect to find in a school classroom after the kids had left for the day. James seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"You know, this has got to be the messiest office in the whole buil- Yaargh!" James jumped when a girl with bright pink hair grabbed him from behind, putting her hands over his eyes. "Gotcha!" she giggled, hopping from side to side to stay behind him as he tried to look around.

"Let me guess… Dave, is that you?"

"_Harr_." the girl said sarcastically, letting him go. James whirled around and threw up his hands, gasping in mock surprise. "Oh! Caz! Why, I had no idea!"

"What are you doing here?" Holly interjected, "We're in the middle of something."

"Uh - it's my department, silly!" Caz shot back. "I should ask _you_ the same question." At this point she switched her attention to Chris, who was alarmed to find himself being turned around, poked and prodded as the girl investigated him.

"You're new! Hello!" she said, studying him intently.

"Hey-"

"Just a moment, please! Ah, there." she said, patting his head and nodding in satisfaction. "OK, measurements taken. Show me a smile?"

Chris forced a nervous smile, not sure what she was looking for. Caz grimaced. "Oh dear, no, this won't do." she tapped her chin in thought, and her expression brightened immediately. "Hmm. Maybe if we put him with Mika? He smiled _much_ better when he was talking to her." she put her hands up and aimed them at Chris as if envisaging a photograph, and her eyes suddenly flickered. A perosocom! He caught a glimpse of her ears then, the plastic just peeking out from underneath her crazy hair. A moment later she laughed again.

"Aw, Mika says you're nice to try smiling for me, even if it was forced. I agree! Glad to have you here!"

"We're didn't bring him here for you to canvas for your photographs." Holly grumbled, attempting to steer a bemused Chris away by the small of his back. The other persocom simply took his arm, though.

"You can't bring him into _my territory_ and expect him to escape without a single decent photo! He can be photogenic, check Mika's images!"

"We don't have time for this, we're on a schedule-" Holly began, but Caz cut her off.

"Schedule smedule! Let me stalk you from the shadows then. You won't know I'm there. I need pictures! I have a catalogue to finish by tomorrow!" she pleaded. Caz bobbed around him while maintaining the grip on his arm, scrutinising him from different angles. Her eyes might have flickered a few more times, just then.

"There are plenty of other employees you could pester instead. You haven't even asked his permission. You can't put him in marketing materials without consent." Holly countered.

"Aw, pfft... Chris consents, don't you?" Caz crooned, surreptitiously snapping a few more images.

"Uh..." Chris managed. Holly had a "no" on her lips that she would have voiced, were it not for James interrupting them. "Enough! If you two could not fight, that would be great. Come on Caz, you come and talk to me. What's the gossip this week?" He took the lead through the glass maze. Caz trotted after James to walk alongside him and they began a quiet but animated conversation, leaving Holly to walk alongside Chris.

"I don't understand why they programmed her like that." Holly muttered.

"That's her programming?"

"Yes, she belongs to Marketing. They're all too… too much fun. I believe it's to boost happiness and optimism in the department."

"That sounds like a good idea, if I'm honest. Wouldn't that sort of cheeriness be infectious?"

"You'd think, but some in the company feel they're just distracting." She shook her head before changing the subject. "Never mind that, though. We are supposed to be focusing on you and the company. So what drew you to us anyway? What made you want to come to NEIS?"

"It's a cliché, but I'm just really interested in the stuff NEIS do. Robotics, persocoms, all the software and hardware and the research… there probably isn't a boring thing in this whole building. There's so much opportunity to do amazing work here."

"Not a boring thing in the building... That's a nice perspective." she replied.

"What about you?" Chris found himself saying.

"…Me?" she said, eyebrows twitching upwards in surprise.

"Yeah, why are you…?" Chris stopped himself mid-sentence, cursing his stupidity. Of course it was a strange thing to ask a persocom. She was almost certainly company property.

"I'm assigned to James." Holly said, leaving it at that. It was as he expected, then; she was likely manufactured for her purpose. This thought did open up another line of inquiry, though.

"Do the persocoms here… um, what do they do, at the end of the day?"

"You're the first person to ask about that." Holly smiled, "Most generally stay here. There is work we can do while most of the humans are away-"

"Or play!" Caz winked over her shoulder. When Holly directed a disapproving gaze in her direction, she poked her tongue out and resumed chatting with James.

"-and we also have all the facilities we need, here. Power, maintenance, cleaning, and storage."

Chris pondered this for a minute. Most _generally _stay here? Holly seemed to pick up on his unspoken question.

"At the end of the day, I used to stay in his office. These days I tend to go home with him." she said quietly.

"How come?"

"He warmed to me over the first few months, and then one afternoon he asked. As his personal assistant, I can help in both work and home environments."

"Oh... Do many people take their persocoms home with them?"

"Yes, they do. The ability to do that is integral to the company culture, it's quite important to many of our employees."

"How come?"

"...You don't have a persocom, do you?" Holly said, shooting him a sidelong glance. It was less of a question so much as a statement, as if he'd made the fact apparent.

"Only ever keychain models." Chris said, feeling his ears heating slightly. It was still a little embarrassing to admit to, joining this company with so little personal experience in persocoms, but they had been adamant it wasn't an issue.

Holly spent a moment in thought. "Hmm. Then perhaps you need some additional context for this. This was something I planned to leave for later in the tour, but we might as well discuss it now. As you know, persocoms are extremely capable, and can perform most of the tasks ordinary humans can, not to mention many they cannot. A persocom can help you with your work, or assist around the house, or perform tasks that are difficult, unsafe or impossible for humans to accomplish. But more than that, persocoms are _designed_ to integrate with humans. It's very intentional, that's why great effort is made for us to be so lifelike. This means we're also very good at simply keeping people company. We move and talk like most people, but we're also perfect listeners, and we don't forget things, about you or anything you find important. Some people find that level of attentiveness very appealing for companionship. We're made to be pleasant to be around, and that naturally draws people towards persocoms. For many staff here, it's as simple as that - but for others there are also work-related reasons for their persocoms to follow them home."

"It sounds like there are a lot of potential problems, though." Chris said, and Holly nodded.

"Yes, there are issues, both inside and outside of NEIS. Some people struggle to differentiate between us and them. They either can't or don't want to, and are dissatisfied with the role of persocoms in society or their personal lives. Sometimes the extreme opposite occurs, where people cannot entertain any level of integration and are perhaps even disgusted by it. Both scenarios lead to complications in a working or living arrangement. It is a big issue in the industry, even if it's not really brought to light in an official capacity, because both circumstances could potentially impact the popularity and sales of persocom units. The optimum path is a middle-ground, but in truth it's always an average of widely scattered opinion."

"Does this affect how the company operates, then?"

"Yes and no. It's not for NEIS to determine how persocoms and people in the outside world should interact, though some groups argue that we have a responsibility as a manufacturer of persocoms to tend the matter. As for internally, I think the company handles it very well by being as lax as possible with the rules. People aren't required to bring company persocoms home with them, nor are they required to leave them in the office. If and when a work pair are designated, they can figure out the details themselves in a way which is most comfortable to them, or even cancel the arrangement. Employees are also free to bring their own persocoms to work if they so wish."

"How come you and James remained paired, if he was so reluctant in the beginning? Wouldn't he have cancelled the arrangement? Wouldn't you?"

Holly watched James as he walked ahead of them, waving his hands and laughing with the other persocom.

"He never made that request, and neither did I." She said with a subtle grin.


	15. Chapter 15

Caz had vanished to pursue other members of staff, leaving James, Chris and Holly to complete the office section of the tour in peace. At least, she did eventually - Chris was sure he caught a glimpse of her slinking between adjacent office partitions on one or two occasions. The other persocoms in this part of the building were of a similarly energetic nature, lending credence to Holly's earlier comment about them being "too much fun", but they generally wanted nothing from the group beyond a friendly hello or a quick interrogation to see how their day was going. Holly seemed to draw them to her like flies to fruit - her neutral air was exactly the sort of demeanor they seemed to target, as if they were determined to get her to smile. Such attempts failed fantastically on every occasion, proving a constant source of frustration for Holly... and amusement for James.

Now the three of them stood before the inner circumference of the office block, which overlooked the building's inner ring. Chris stared at the scene before him in wonder. Their vantage point on the seventh office floor overlooked the factory below. It was clear that the inner ring had multiple floors, but it looked like they must be fewer in number, and much taller. The massive space inside this uppermost floor was crammed with heavy, polished hi-tech machinery. They formed what appeared to be production lines, many of them squatting over conveyors that ran most of the length of the floor, carrying persocom chassis from one end of the line to the other. A large corridor-like structure bisected the area down the middle, disappearing into the distant curvature of the far wall. Its dark, translucent surface was peppered not with doors but hefty access ports that didn't look like they were for pedestrian use, generally set at waist-height and often opening directly onto the production conveyors. Chris could see large silhouettes behind the dark exterior, shuttling rapidly back and forth along the inside at alarming speed. He observed one as it rocketed up to the end of the channel, briskly depositing something at the final access port before hurtling the length of the factory floor and vanishing into the far wall.

"Okay.. I don't know what I'm looking at down there, but it's fascinating." Chris murmured, resisting the urge to press his face against the glass. Not a whisper of sound came to his ears; indeed, all the commotion below was inaudible behind the thick glass at which they stood.

"The middle of the building is mostly factory space; offices and ancillaries tend to exist in the rings. We'll be down there later," James beamed, clapping Chris on the shoulder. "You'll love it, I promise." His persocom nodded in agreement.

"Yes. But the design is complicated. Let's examine this building in a little more detail before we explore the factory floors." Holly said, motioning for Chris to follow her. She led them into an unoccupied office which couldn't have belonged to anyone, on account of not being stuffed with marketing gear and the sort of strange artefacts this office seemed to collect.

"You're not required to memorise this; it's just to give an impression of how the building comes together." Holly said. Her eyes flashed and the transparent walls flicked to an opaque state, plunging the room into darkness. A moment later the inside wall lit up, a map of the building's interior superimposed on it in isometric relief. The various floors were separated and blown apart so the contents therein could be seen. It was immediately apparent from the diagrammatic representation that the inner areas of the building were indeed mostly production space, but there were examples where this wasn't entirely the case. The inner ground floor contained... something, whatever it was. The first floor seemed to be half factory, with the other split between things like canteens and kitchen space and other facilities Chris couldn't quite discern from the renderings of their contents. Perhaps persocom and building maintenance? The second and third floors were fairly consistently for production, and it seemed lots of office space ringed them in the smaller, more numerous floors on their circumference. Small offices and rooms were also dotted around the very outside of the building in the outer wall of the atrium, which did indeed appear to encircle the entire building as he had suspected, albeit offset from its center such that it was widest at the front entrance and narrowest at the back.

"What's that?" Chris said, pointing to the odd corridor he had seen out on the uppermost factory floor. Now it was drawn on a map he could see it was far bigger than he had assumed, extending not only to the back of the factory but down through most of the other floors except for the ground level. It barely touched the first floor, dropping in at the center from the floor above, to land in the factory that took up half of that level. In the places where it reached the back of the building it continued on to permeate a further set of buildings hanging off the back of the main circle which Chris hadn't even known were there.

"This is the Spine." Holly explained. "Consolidating the factory floors inside the centre of the building was great for productivity, but it bottlenecked the way goods and materials could enter and leave the structure. The Spine fixes that problem; it's our high-speed goods and materials network for the factory floors and our other facilities, such as these," she pointed to the more traditional square-shaped structures that grew out of the rear of the main circular building. "Stores for finished goods and raw materials are situated inside here."

"You said the Spine fixed the problem... What did you use before the spine?" Chris asked. Holly smiled, and the diagram changed, four of the office floors and all but the lowest of the large inner factory floors disappearing.

"A good question. We currently have seven outer-ring floors, and four in the inner circle. But historically this building comprised just a couple of outer floors, and only one in the inner circle, for the original factory. Materials would traditionally enter the factory through an underground tunnel and the production process would take place in an anti-clockwise circle, such that when it was finished, it was back at the tunnel entrance and ready to be moved to storage. This maximised floor space while allowing goods to enter and leave the factory rapidly."

She indicated the area on the map where the old tunnel used to be, running from the side of the original factory floor to intersect the right-hands stores building behind it.

"As the business grew further, production capacity had to increase. This necessitated extra floors, which required goods to be moved between them. It also meant the quantity of goods handled would be increasing, and so a better means to feed the production lines and clear out finished product was needed. LOKI was built on the original factory floor, and the subsequent floors above were added to replace it and extend capacity. The Spine was implemented and penetrates all the upper factory floors, functioning as an automated goods and materials handling system."

Chris looked at the inner ground floor. So that was LOKI? He didn't have time to consider this, though; they were still explaining the Spine.

"It's an extraordinarily efficient design, in terms of output for square footage of floor space" James explained, pointing at the guts of the building. "Everything starts at the bottom and works upwards. Look at end of the Spine on floors two and three. See how it doesn't quite reach the far wall? Raw materials and unfinished products from the lower floors go here. They are unloaded onto the production lines, and proceed down the sides of the floor. When they get to the other end they are either ready for the next floor, or finished, and the Spine collects them again, taking them where they need to go. The shuttles can move up and down, and along the structure extremely quickly without any people to get in the way."

Chris studied the diagram in fascination. It was elaborate, yet elegant. He wondered how the Spine was automated and how that integrated with what the factories were doing at any one time. LOKI, maybe?

"Look at him, Holly!" James laughed, clapping Chris gently on the back. "We're blowing his mind right now."

"This place is incredible," Chris mumbled. How on Earth did he manage to land a job here, again?

"Yeah it is! There's no point looking at it on a map all day, though. Come on, let's go check it out." James pulled open the door, and the glass flashed into transparency again as they filed out into the office.

"We will start at the first floor, which you'll recall from the map contains the smallest factory: that's Neurolectrics. From there, we move up to Mechatronics and Engineering and finally Chassis Completion, which you just saw through the office windows." Holly said, as she led the way towards a set of opaque partitions that Chris realised were a little different to the others as they drew closer. They were in fact a set of lifts for traversing the floors, subtly made to blend in with the rest of the office space.

"Chas-comp hate that the other two factories have more impressive names." James chuckled as they walked inside. Chris spotted Caz a little way down the office aisle hurrying cheerfully towards them, but Holly's eyes flashed and the lift closed its doors immediately, beginning its silent descent. She glanced guiltily at Chris, shaking her head as if to indicate she couldn't stand another minute with the pink-haired persocom.

James didn't notice, absorbed as he was in his musings. "Hmm... As I recall, I think they were petitioning to have it renamed to something else, but what could you possibly call it? Chassis Completion is pretty spot on, really."

"What kind of stuff do they do there?" Chris asked.

"Primarily, it's the final touches to the assembled persocom units from lower levels. Accessory modules are installed, if necessary, but their most important task is the skin. Skin needs to be added to the chassis as a final step, at least in our production process; it's different for some other manufacturers, I understand. It's not very glamorous if you ask me, but it's obviously a crucial part of the process!" James laughed at that, but Chris was busy thinking.

"How about… Dermal-tech? D-Tech, for short? Or Integumentation? Those both sound pretty swanky."

Holly's eyes flashed. She smiled. "LOKI finds them interesting. They will be added to the list of suggestions."

James clapped Chris on the shoulder again. "Hah! You're going places, mate! LOKI likes forward-thinkers."

"Oh - I didn't mean to interfere-!" Chris began to apologise before Holly interrupted.

"You're not interfering, you're contributing. That's encouraged. NEIS operate an agile bureaucratic environment here, and LOKI mediates a lot of the decision-making processes; everything from what the restaurant menus should offer this week, to what materials to order in anticipation of demand for the next quarter, to big departmental and inter-departmental decisions that affect the structure or functionality of the company. Meetings are poor for productivity, so we keep them to a minimum; if the employees can collaborate on ideas dynamically throughout their workday, without interrupting themselves to sit in a room for an hour of discussion, it benefits everyone."

"That's for later though, let's concentrate on the now." James said, as the lift chimed their arrival to the first floor. The lift opened into a corridor covered in doors that must lead to places further around the ring. They walked out and turned right, heading towards the middle of the building instead. The corridor soon ended at the side of another which followed the curvature of the inner wall, and the windows ahead revealed a very different factory environment to the one Chris had seen from the seventh floor.

Chris walked up to the window to stare. There were no enormous sweeping glass partitions here; the windows were small, built into thick walls with large seals around their circumferences. The floor inside was smaller than upstairs, its semicircular shape encompassing 'only' half the enormous space within the inner wall. It looked like the innermost portion of the factory was divided into another smaller crescent by floor-to-ceiling walls. Through the little windows therein, he could just glimpse the tail-end of the Spine, dropping into the space through the roof. It looked very different too, its few access ports much smaller. Or so it seemed; it was hard to see from that far across the factory floor, especially with all the equipment in the way.

That drew his attention to the equipment. Chris had thought it was clean enough upstairs, but everything in here looked pristine, and a lot of the machinery was not bulky, but instead delicate. Precision instrumentation he did not recognise were arranged neatly on the work surfaces, and the people within walked around in strange coveralls with masks over their face and caps covering their hair. Chris could see the floor was still clearly arranged as a production line. Product was flowing slowly along the curvature of the floor, although it seemed to slide on rail-mounted jigs directly from machine to machine instead of by conveyor, and where it did leave a rail, it was carried exclusively by persocoms operating elaborate-looking carts which loaded and unloaded the jigs like cartridges.

"Why stand out here? Let's get inside!" James said, shepherding Chris along the corridor to what appeared to be a large airlock and changing room. They walked inside the chamber, which contained racks of the same clothes people were wearing inside.

"Put these on," James said, offering him a set that looked to match his size. Holly was already pulling a coverall up and over her shoulders. "They go over what you're wearing. Pop these straps over your shoes and tuck the end into your socks as well, please. And please don't touch anything once we're inside, okay? Antistatic and anti-particulate precautions, you see. We're dealing with extremely sensitive electronics in here."

Chris made a bit of a mess of it; his footwear was larger than the others' and the coveralls caught on them as he tried to pull them on. When he was finally zipped up he felt something tug at the cap on his head, pulling it a little lower at the back. He turned to see Holly looking him up and down, satisfied he was ready.

"This way please," her voice was a little muffled from the face mask. Her eyes flashed as she approached the airlock door; it hissed open before they walked inside, and clunked shut behind them. James tapped Chris on the arm to get his attention.

"Now don't be alarmed by this step, but there's going to be a-_FUCK_" James shouted as a strong gust of wind hit them in the top of the head and Chris jumped, looking around for the source. A moment later it was gone, and James sighed, ignoring Holly's intensely disapproving look.

"Bloody hell, it gets me every time... ah, sorry, naughty language..." he muttered, as the inner doors to Neurolectrics slid open. Immediately the noise of the floor reached Chris's ears. It wasn't the aggressive grumbling of heavy machinery, so much as the whine of servomotors, high-voltage electronics and air-moving devices.

"Right, then. As you might have been able to guess, this is where we build the neurologic hardware for every persocom we manufacture." James gestured around the factory floor, raising his voice over the noise. "Tell me, how much do you know about semiconductor fabrication?"

"Just a little," Chris admitted. The information wasn't all that easy to find on the web, but he had read about it on occasion. The processes were fascinating. "I've heard of the basic concepts, I'd say."

"Good enough! Good enough," James clapped his hands together, rubbing them cheerfully. A passing persocom glanced unhappily at his gesture; it was a surefire way to spread particulates into the pristine air. "Well, I can tell you we don't manufacture our own source crystal - they're shipped in - but we do fab our own wafers in-house. That actually happens in there," James pointed to the thick wall further towards the center of the floor. "All the photolithographic processes, etching, doping and dicing happen in there. But we can't go inside without proper environment suits and clearance. Maybe we'll gawp through the windows a bit later. Out here, we're packaging the finished dies and assembling the core. The 'brain' if you will. This eventually makes its way to Mechatronics for installation in the chassis, but it has to take a trip in the Spine to Quality and escape their clutches first, and that also takes days..."

Chris stepped aside as a procession of persocoms made their way to the inner airlock, only to move again to make way for another pushing a cartridge cart for the rail system. "There's so much going on here!"

"There is, but it might interest you to know that this is by far the slowest floor of the whole factory, in terms of turnaround. It takes a long time for the semiconductors to be completed, which hurts when there are defects that render some of them useless. Our current process is down to about 45 days. That's really very good, all things considered."

"What's the yield rate?" Chris asked, searching his limited semifab knowledge for something relevant to say. James chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't ask! But we're always looking to improve."

Holly chimed in as they began to walk along the factory floor, following the flow of the various products on the lines. "Development of Neurologic technology is a continuous endeavour. This department works very closely with R&D in this regard - one of their departments is stationed a little further round the corridor on this floor."

James nodded in agreement. "Yes, R&D exist in some capacity on most floors, as it happens. They need to keep their fingers in every pie to be truly effective. Must be a bit disconcerting, not really having an official department designation of your own. But hey, if it ever bothers them, nobody seems to complain."

"Will we get to see my department?" Chris asked, his voice faltering as he watched one of the mysterious cartridges disappear into the side of a large machine beside them. Through the viewing window he could see the cartridge break open, revealing delicate electronics inside. The machine selected a tiny board, lifting it away and locking it beneath what appeared to be an array of disturbingly long needles on a set of articulated arms. Those arms flew into action, their needles flicking up and down and across the board, moving so fast they were a blur. Chris realised they were electrical probes testing for continuity and signalling, each tip delicately making contact with a microscopic pad or test point, reading the result, and moving on. A display on the front of the machine showed the board schematic, flickering rapidly between the thousands of circuit paths on the board as it cycled through them.

"No, that'll be tomorrow. Just factories and LOKI for today! That'll be more than enough, believe me!" James laughed, gently steering Chris away from the machine. "Come on, we've got a lot to get through before lunch!"

* * *

The tour of the remaining factory floors had been fascinating. Each factory seemed to have its own distinct layout and working methodology best tailored to its needs, making for a highly varied environment in each. Chris had seen everything from the neurologic cores being wire-bonded into their housings to finished persocoms rolling off the line and into the Spine. It was both mentally exhausting and exhilarating, and he was buzzing with enthusiasm when they left the inner ring for the atrium once more.

"That was crazy," Chris said, drawing smiles from Holly and James as they walked the circumference of the enormous atrium on the way to the restaurant. "I heard it was complicated but I can't believe the level of assembly that happens here! It's just brilliant."

"Well, it's easier to control these processes when they're together under one roof. We've certainly got the room for it," James said proudly.

"It seems a bit more roomy than that! This place is huge! It's bigger than I thought possible."

James nodded. "Yep, easily a few million square feet if I remember, and this is only part of the overall complex - there are other buildings!"

They'd exited around the far right-hand side of the inner circle, on the ground level; as the map they'd reviewed earlier indicated, the atrium's width was narrow here, its radius off-centre compared to the inner ring. Even so, in person it still felt very spacious, and James' voice bounced off the far wall as they travelled across the open floor.

"I wouldn't say they were nearly as essential as this one, but they're there nonetheless. What LOKI didn't tell you in the little intro presentation was NEIS aggressively pursued the rights to the land around here. It was supposed to be for a business park but NEIS managed to gobble up most of the development. LOKI generally leaves out that little detail."

They came upon a set of doors in the inner wall that looked a little different to the regular design. They were bigger than usual, and looked older, made of metal instead of the usual elegant glass and wood affair. Chris slowed down to look, but the doors were solid and certainly looked like they wouldn't open if he tried. "What's in there?"

For the first time that day, Chris thought he saw James' cheery demeanour fade away. "Ah… yes. The Closed Wing, we call it. Bit of a sore spot, really. It used to be shared space between R&D and some of the product realisation groups. It was closed in the restructuring that saw the factory floors extended, and the two departments were consolidated and moved inside the inner circle. A lot of people lost their jobs; needlessly, most agree... it wasn't a good time for NEIS. LOKI was not happy when it came online and learned of what had taken place before it was installed - R&D is actually a large part of its business strategy, so it's kind of ironic how they take up so much room and need so many staff now."

"Why's it sealed, though?" Chris pressed, and James shrugged.

"We're not using it. Frankly I'm surprised it wasn't re-occupied immediately by another department as soon as it was emptied. I guess it's a little out of the way round here by the side of the complex, and the departments that could use its facilities are better served by their current lodgings. It would take a lot of work to make it suitable for other departments... Hmm, now I think about it, about a year ago a there were rumours we might open it up as some sort of museum or tourist piece, but they've died out since. It used to contain a lot of the hardware necessary for working on our products because the staff would need to iterate on designs faster than the original single-floor factory could support. That would certainly have made a good showcase for how our products were made. But, hey… it's just how it is, I guess. LOKI will think of a use for it eventually, I'm sure."

Their walk carried them further around the circumference, back across the front of the building where the reception island floated inside its sea of empty space. After a quick lift ride to the first floor they kept going, heading around the other side now, and the noise of chatter and bustle slowly began to build, as did the number of colleagues who joined them on their journey. The noise was clearly coming from the restaurant entrance: a wide, doorless opening which delved into the inner circle.

James had explained the restaurant was a hectic affair even outside normal lunch hours, but to see it at midday made that statement somewhat unbelievable. By the time they drew close it looked like the entire company was flocking in its direction all at once. The trio poured themselves through the entrance along with the incoming crowd. The long entrance corridor inside curved around to the left, seamlessly melding with the beginning of the actual restaurant and expanding wider and wider still. The left wall ended abruptly where the actual seating began, thereafter revealing a wide additional area behind it filled with yet more tables, chairs and hungry people. A set of wide ramps gently inclined down there, connecting the large lower eating space with the upper deck. The right-hand wall, which continued on its rounded path, became a huge counter that connected the restaurant to the kitchens on the other side. Stood overlooking the scene, Chris could see the restaurant formed something of an oval inside the floor in which it was built - almost as if someone cut two thirds out of the middle of a circle and stuck the end pieces together. He knew Neurolectrics and their R&D division took up an exact 50% of this level in the inner circle, but what lay on the other side of the restaurant wall? He tried to recall the floor diagrams from earlier... maintenance, maybe? And the kitchens and storage?

"What would you fancy?" Holly asked, taking Chris by surprise. He quickly scanned the menus, displayed on monitors on the wall.

"Oh... anything with chips would be great. That chicken burger sounds good, maybe I'll have that!" he said, fumbling for his wallet.

"One chicken burger and chips..." Holly's eyes flashed as she nodded in acknowledgement.

"You won't need the wallet." James told Chris, patting his hand away from his pocket. "It's all covered by the company. Very generous, eh! It's the least they could do really… besides giving us some of the most interesting jobs in the world and paying us for it, that is!" He chuckled, rubbing his hands together with glee.

"And a drink?" Holly asked, looking at Chris expectantly.

"Did you... are you placing an order?" Chris asked the persocom. She nodded again.

"Of course. It's much quicker than you ordering at the counter."

"Wow. Oh, uh... tea, would be great, thanks."

"Same for me please, Holly." James chuckled. "Come on Chris, did you really think a persocom manufacturing company wouldn't take advantage of persocom abilities at every opportunity? Why would we order lunch any other way?"

He pointed to the line they were joining. It moved very quickly for a lunchtime queue.

"Here, take a look. Have you noticed how the queue is mostly persocoms? They queue a lot more civilly than humans do, and they can move more dextrously in tight proximity to each other. Watch."

Chris could see that the persocoms ahead in the queue were hardly stopping when they reached the counters. Instead, persocoms on the other side walked straight up alongside specific units with their orders, wordlessly handing them over without slowing before veering away and back into the heart of the kitchens. These orders - trays with plates, or bags to go, drinks and all - were deftly accepted and carried away without missing a beat. The line only really stalled when a human in the queue reached the counter.

"Some people like to eat at their desks and will send their persocom down for their grub, and others just can't be arsed to stand in line. Either way, it's much more efficient to keep human involvement to a minimum here. The same is true for several areas of the company, actually, but no truer than here!"

By now they had reached the counters. Sure enough, they stalled the line as they stopped to accept their trays, thanking the kitchen persocoms who handed them over much more carefully than they did to their own kind. Chris was sure that kind of caution was unnecessary.

"I tried it," James said to Chris, reading his mind. "Did work a couple of times, but then I managed to throw a tray all over the floor and look stupid in front of half the company. It's better to slow down and pick them up like we're supposed to." He chuckled, scanning the restaurant in front of them before leading their little procession across the dining floor and down the ramps to the lower deck. "Let's try the corner. I like the corner!" Sure enough, there were a few sparsely-populated tables tucked into the corner where the curved outer restaurant wall came back around to meet the inside wall of the entrance corridor.

James made a beeline for a table occupied by an attractive young woman in a NEIS company polo shirt. Long, straightened brown hair framed a face with cute features that scowled the moment James drew near. She gave him the finger as he and the others were taking their seats.

"Fuck off, you!" she said, unable to keep the scowl in place and snorting inelegantly into her food. James grinned as he dropped his tray on the table opposite her. Apparently they knew each other well.

"Sooo, I see-"

"No! Shh! Don't you even start." Her voice wavered as she fought the urge to laugh.

"- I see the Alphabet looked well this morning." James finished, wearing a charming smile.

"No! Bad. Shut up." she said, directing an amused glare at him before fixing large hazel eyes upon Chris, who now sat beside her. "Hello stranger, it's nice to meet you. Don't mind James, he's a bloody wind-up merchant. Name's Sarah Brookeledge."

"Chris Barker, I just joined." Chris said, smiling and offering his hand.

Sarah smiled back as she shook it. "Oh I can tell, nobody hangs around with _that_ bloody layabout if they have the choice!" she flicked a pea from her plate and it rocketed across the table, bouncing off James' nose.

"Disgusting table manners. Just appalling." James muttered, pretending to be offended as he took an unflatteringly large bite out of his burger. Holly regarded Sarah with disdain, but stopped when James subtly touched her arm. Chris might have pondered the rich array of relationship dynamics at play were it not for the food he was about to demolish being so distracting. He couldn't quite figure out how a burger that big was supposed to find its way inside his face... Why were they always so tall?

"So what are you in for?" Sarah said, her attention still on Chris.

"Software dev," he replied, still eyeing the burger suspiciously. Sarah's expression brightened.

"Ah, one of us! Welcome! Oh, we'll see each other again real soon, then. I'm in S-Dev too! We do all sorts of crazy things over there, it's a total playground. Right now I'm working on a next-gen behavioural matrix project and it is going to be the most awesome thing _ever_, you just wait and see."

"Actually he already has," James chuckled, turning to Chris. "Remember the Alphabet? They're the fruits of Sarah's labour. It's going awfully well, I must say. _Awfully_ well."

"I'm serious James, you leave my babies alone, we're trying something very different here!" Sarah admonished him, pointing her fork across the table with one hand while the other hovered by her plate. She seemed tempted to flick more food in his direction, but the look on Holly's face might have changed her mind.

"What do you know about Emotional Software Cortexes?" Sarah said, switching back to Chris in an instant. Chris blinked as he tried to catch up with the question.

"Oh.. uh, not a lot really, first I heard of it was today. A new type of behavioural matrix?"

That response earned him a derisive snort. "Pfft! Hah! Hahaha! Oh, of _course_... you heard this from James didn't you?" Sarah glowered across the table, but her playful look was deflected by an impish grin, so she continued. "Well that's not doing it justice at all. An ESC is a complete rethink on the way a behavioural matrix functions. One replaces the other, but they're barely comparable. It'll mean more realistic persocoms than ever before." Holly gazed at Sarah with a blank expression, but the woman avoided meeting her eyes, fixing them on Chris as she spoke. "It'll mean the line between artificial and genuine intelligence becomes even blurrier than it already is."

"Behavioural matrices are pretty good already, Sarah. They're certainly much closer to human-analogue than you've managed to achieve so far!" James teased. Holly glanced at him, her face unreadable, and he smiled disarmingly back.

Sarah sighed, chewing thoughtfully. "Yeah… yeah, I know. But I hope to build a fully functioning one someday. Someday soon. We'll do it… we have to. NEIS will be left behind if the team doesn't come up with our own ESC. You should see the buggers from KESS gloating about theirs on PSoc. '_First in the UK_', blah blah blah. Arrogant gits. Someone should remind them they're still a year behind the likes of Japan or Korea."

"Persocom Society," James said, explaining PSoc before Chris could ask its meaning. "It's an online forum for developers which used to be about passion for the technology. Now it's about bragging and willy-measuring, thanks in no small part to troublemakers like Sarah here."

"Please," Sarah sniffed indifferently, "Don't lump me in with those super-intelligent idiots. I read their self-centred drivel, that's all. Besides we're gonna crack it too, mark my words." She paused to snarf down a forkful of shepherd's pie, then switched subjects again, directing her attention back to Chris. "So where've you been today then? What've you done? Come on, spill the beans!"

"Oh, uh, the offices and factories so far." Chris said simply. Apparently that answer was insufficient. Sarah blinked at the reply and laughed. "Wow, he's fitting right in, James. Did you hear that? Such a detailed and enthusiastic description of his day!"

"Hey, I can talk your ears off if you like, I just figured you knew all the details already," Chris grinned, and Sarah raised her eyebrows, turning to her colleague.

"Oooh, I stand corrected, he was in fact _fascinated_. Truly, this is a testament to the quality of your tour-guide skills." Sarah chuckled.

"Hmm… I should do this full time, shouldn't I?" James mused, rubbing his chin in thought.

"Now that raises a _great_ question: what exactly _do_ you do around here? Nobody I talk to seems to know!" Sarah smirked victoriously over her plate, but James weathered the insult effortlessly.

"I'm actually the oxygen tester." he said matter-of-factly. "If I collapse, head for the nearest window!" The humans laughed at their banter, but Holly didn't join in.

"Oh come on Holly, we're only playing." Sarah said as she noticed the persocom's demeanour.

"James has an important job." Holly said reproachfully, looking intently at Sarah. "It is erroneous to suggest otherwise."

"So _defensive_!" Sarah gasped in amusement, "We know who wears the pants between the two of you, don't we?"

"Holly…" James smiled wearily, sighing as if he'd repeated these words many times, "People are allowed to have fun at each other's expense, okay? It's perfectly harmless."

"But in this case it devalues your contribution to the company." Holly stated, before turning to Sarah, "And please don't make such assertions about James and I. That is inappropriate." she sounded a little annoyed, but her expression was still neutral.

"But you two are _adorable_ together," Sarah wistfully clasped her hands and held them to her heart. "So cute!"

"We work effectively as a team." Holly said bluntly. Chris glanced at James, unsure whether to be amused or bemused, but the stocky man was momentarily occupied with his burger.

"Work effectively? Aww... I'll bet you do! Like two perfect peas in a busy little pod." Sarah spoke as if she found this endearing, but there was something calculating about the way she was looking at the persocom.

"That's hardly an accurate description." Holly retorted, her face still perfectly composed.

"Isn't it? How would you put it?" Sarah pressed, leaning forward. She seemed very interested in what Holly would say next.

"I would say we are productive together; a much more concise evaluation of our pairing that isn't tainted by your romantic hyperbole." the persocom replied, emphasising the last few words. The conversation was beginning to make Chris feel uncomfortable, but James laughing into his burger eased the sensation somewhat. The man nodded to himself, as if satisfied with the calibre of Holly's response.

The same could not be said for Sarah. "That's cold, Holly. Won't you at least admit you look good together? You know that, don't you?" she said reproachfully. Holly remained silent, at that. "Come on, you're the perfect duo! Ooo, what if we used you two for stock photography for the our short-form catalogues! Have you talked to the girls in marketing? How about that _lovely_ persocom, oh, what's her name… Caz, is it?"

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Sarah waved Holly's words away dismissively. "Nonsense! You get on _really well_ with her, right? I'm sure she'd be only too happy to help, when I get back to the office I'll get Tilda to send her a message-"

"Can we move the conversation on to something else?" Holly said, perhaps a little louder than usual. Sarah's eyes were locked on her face, studying the persocom's expression. Chris looked for himself - Holly's expression still seemed quite neutral, to him. What was going on?

James finally lowered his burger. "Right, that's enough! Leave her alone." He spoke sternly. Sarah shrugged, leaning back in her chair and wearing a sly smile. "You've had your fun. You don't anger the Holly. Never anger the Holly."

"Grow up, James." Holly grated. _Now_ the annoyance was visible on her face. It appeared he was the real weak spot in her armour. She glared daggers at him, and Sarah regarded the two of them with interest.

"Yes, Holly. At once, Holly!" James saluted, earning himself another scowl, before sitting up and wolfing down the rest of his food. "Mmn. Chris, are you nearly done? I think we should go and see LOKI for reasons that have _nothing at all_ to do with ending this conversation. See you, Sarah."

Holly and Sarah both gave him a flat look, but he was already getting up from the table and didn't notice. Sarah patted Chris on the arm as he stood, mouthing something that might have been "_see you later!_" or "_he's an idiot!_" before turning back to her meal.

Chris and James collected their trays and deposited them on one of the various collection racks that dotted the restaurant floor. Holly took the lead out of the restaurant, and James breathed a quiet sigh of relief as they walked away from the tables.

"Phew! Okay, off to LOKI we go. Should've known not to tease Sarah about the Alphabet. She always gets me back double. Winding up Holly like that… Should've known, should've known. Now Holly will be grumpy for the rest of the day."

"I will not!" Holly said, in a manner which sounded rather unconvincing. It seemed Sarah had struck a nerve. Maybe a few. Chris couldn't resist asking what that interaction had been about. "Why are Sarah and Holly so-"

"Incompatible?" James laughed, "It's strange to say, but Sarah's actually fascinated by Holly. Her behavioural matrix isn't quite 'standard-issue' you see. There were once a couple of guys in S-Dev who wanted to experiment with the way a behavioural matrix interacts with the learning capabilities of the neurologic platform. Holly's matrix is the result. Those guys have since left the company - for KESS, would you believe… and guess what they're working on! Yep. They're posting on PSoc about their progress on ESCs. Unsurprisingly, Sarah is convinced Holly's software will help her figure out the ESC puzzle, so she pokes and pushes her to see how she reacts to different stimuli."

"I'm an experiment to her? You never told me that!" Holly was incredulous, but James just nodded cheerily as he continued.

"Oh, certainly, but you're more than that, my dear. Sarah genuinely feels your involvement would be an important step in the right direction for her end goals. You know for a long time now she's wanted me to put you in the ESC project!"

"Sarah wants me to join the project? Are you going to let that happen?" Holly seemed visibly appalled at the notion, but James put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and his response brought a small smile to her lips.

"Holly my dear, I told her never in a million years!"


	16. Chapter 16

Holly drew to a halt in the middle of the first floor walkway, causing James and Chris to stop in puzzlement. She turned her head slightly, as if hearing something beneath the bustle of the people flowing around them. "Just a moment," she said, her eyes glazing over and flashing lazily. The persocom turned around and pointed back along their path. "This way. We're moving the schedule around."

This didn't please her work partner. "No…. nooo, don't say that!" James moaned, wringing his hands.

"What's happening?" Chris asked, as they began retracing their way through the thronging masses.

"There's been a change of plans. You need to collect your persocom now." Holly explained. James swore under his breath, muttering to himself. Somewhat bizarrely, his normal cheerful demeanour had all but vanished.

"Why? What's the matter?" Chris pressed, slightly bewildered by the other man's irritation.

James scowled as he replied. "If I'm guessing right, we've a problem in Mechatronics." Holly nodded sympathetically and he swore again. "Ahh shit, I _knew_ that part was out of spec. How many?"

"Thirty thousand, prepped and packed." Holly replied. She might have slapped him in the face, the way he looked at her then.

"What?! _Thirty K_? What the hell happened to the sample batch? Oh for-! I bloody told them and all! This is what I get for handing off that bloody project so soon!" the stocky man fell silent, took a deep breath and relaxed a little. When he next spoke, he sounded more like his usual self. "Never mind! Never mind. This is good for learning. OK Chris, so what's happened is an easily avoidable problem has been allowed to grow into something much bigger: Mechatronics have a production part on the factory floor not fit for purpose. Now they have to halt production and shuttle the goods off for rework. Unfortunately, this will absorb enough of the Spine's capacity that it won't be able to handle nonessential carriage without affecting the other factories. Not for several hours, probably."

Holly nodded, getting to the point. "This means your persocom's delivery has been expedited to clear the log. We'll need to make the collection quickly; the maintenance manager wants us in and out because there's going to be a rush of traffic round there before Mechatronics commandeer the Spine."

"Oh, I see... that sounds awful." Chris managed. Truth be told, he was trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Getting to meet his persocom a few hours early was no bad thing, as far as he was concerned! It was hard to feel sympathetic for Mechatronics just then. It was even harder not to grin like a child about to skip dinner for ice cream. Holly raised an eyebrow at him, and he tried not to blush; his impassive expression wasn't fooling her, at least. He'd heard of persocoms with biometrics software before... that must be how she knew. If true, it was as much interesting as it was embarrassing to be so readable. Could she see through James just as easily? His mind wandered back to the cryptic words she'd said to him in the offices that morning.

Maintenance was located on the same level as the restaurant; it was one of the facilities taking up the space not swallowed by Neurolectrics in the inner circle. Its entranceway opened into a foyer of sorts; something of a large waiting room where corridors branched to and from the various maintenance facilities available, many relating to persocoms rather than the building itself. Of course, Holly had mentioned persocoms had everything they needed here. It was indeed busy; there was a lot of pedestrian traffic moving in and out of the space, and a queue was rapidly forming at the right-hand side of the foyer. It trailed out of a wide doorway labelled "Pickup and Drop-Off".

A few humans staffed the centre, patrolling the bustling floor. One approached them immediately, looking more than a little harassed.

"Can we help you?"

"We're only here for PIDO - just a collection," James said, waving the man away. That seemed to be what he was hoping for; he nodded gratefully and hurried away to attend to other arrivals.

They joined the back of the fast-moving queue. Stood in line, Chris couldn't help but turn his mind to his new persocom. Any moment now! What would it look like? What unit class? A miniature? He rather hoped so; a full sized unit would be all kinds of trouble. He lived in a tiny little flat… what if he had to take it home with him, like so many employees did theirs? It would be a while before he could move somewhere bigger. There was a pokey living room-kitchen combo, a toilet, and a bedroom... Where was it going to stay?

Voices were rising at the foyer entrance, people shouting to get out of the way; a persocom was half-limping, half-dragged through the busy passageway, her arms thrown over the shoulders of two men who hurried her across the room. She was trailing fluids from her leg, which appeared smashed below the hip, her clothes and skin torn and the substructures broken and twisted. Facility staff ran up to the men, grilling them for information and rushing her down one of the corridors as the crowd looked on and murmured in surprise.

"Holly?" James said quietly. Holly's eyes flashed.

"Mechatronics. Something broke free of the lathe."

"What the fuck are they using those for on today's order book?" James growled, losing his temper once again. "Don't tell me: It's the bloody part for rework, isn't it."

Holly nodded after a moment's concentration. "Yes. Apparently an attempt at a time-saving exercise."

"Right, then send a message to the floor supervisor, please. Someone endangered that persocom trying to save a few pointless minutes on their work order and they need a foot up their arse."

"Thirty other persocoms have just done the very same thing." Holly replied, as they followed the queue into the PIDO zone. It was not unlike a mail-room for a courier service, except the mail could apparently be anything from letters to enormous crates of goods that needed wheeling away. It looked a little out of place in a Maintenance department, as if it had been added as something of an afterthought.

"Well send another one then. And I need to talk to Arthur about this; let's sort Chris out with his unit and then could you put me through? Bloody morons," James huffed, still grumpy about Mechatronics. "…thanks, Holly."

"Will she be okay?" Chris asked with concern. Both James and Holly nodded reassuringly, taking him by surprise. He'd expected worse news after seeing the damage.

"Oh, completely. Don't worry, she'll be good as new within a few hours, I can promise you that." James said, about as encouragingly as could be possible with a voice so gruff with annoyance.

"Sometimes bad accidents happen in factories; that's the nature of the job. If it's a human involved, it's a big medical problem. If it's a persocom, we can usually fix them immediately, and everything will be okay. Please don't let this play on your mind." Holly added.

"It's just in this instance it shouldn't have happened in the first place; it was an unnecessary risk and that's unacceptable. We do _not_ work that way here. We look after our people _and_ our persocoms." James said firmly.

"You know, if you took on more responsibility you could make sure things like this didn't happen." Holly said tactfully, "The position is still available to you if you wanted. Arthur would authorise it in a heartbeat."

James rolled his eyes. "Not again, Holly. I _don't_ want it, it's... boring. I like what I do just fine."

Her line of conversation shut down before it could begin, Holly sighed visibly. Ahead of them a counter could be seen, a persocom busily ferrying packages to and from a set of shelves and an allocated floorspace for large crates and boxes. Behind all that, there appeared to be a lift shuttling staff and goods between PIDO and the floor above. It didn't look like the Spine; the Spine only reached into Neurolectrics on this level, and besides, this looked like a freight elevator. Perhaps the Spine was adjacent to it upstairs, though. That must be how they moved packages in and out of the system.

Holly engaged in a silent exchange with the persocom behind the counter as they approached, and he wordlessly handed over a shoebox-sized brown package that Holly immediately passed to Chris. She smiled as if she could measure his excitement. If fact, she very probably could.

Chris handled the little box with utmost care. So… this was to be his persocom. A miniature unit, clearly. That would be perfect! He couldn't deny the euphoria of the moment was somewhat dulled by the last few minutes' events, but nonetheless that bubble of elation in his chest reappeared and began to grow.

"Let's get out of here." James grumbled, leading them away from the bustle and back out into the atrium walkway. He quickly calmed down as they put distance between themselves as the maintenance area; by the time they reached the atrium lifts he was smiling and chuckling as usual. Chris was beginning to think the man was a little bit volatile.

They travelled to the ground floor and led him to one of the reception rooms a few minutes' walk away. James stayed outside while Holly let Chris in. This room contained less chairs than the one he used that morning, and featured a long table with seating at the front which could have been used to host small talks or presentations in front of an audience.

"You may unbox your persocom now. We're going to leave you in here while you do that; the Mechatronics incident needs our attention for a moment." Holly indicated towards the table before heading outside. She popped her head back around the door a second later, flashing him an uncharacteristic grin, "Besides, it's much nicer to meet your new persocom in private! Nobody will disturb you. Come out when you're ready, we'll be nearby."

As quickly as that she closed the door, leaving the room covered in a thick blanket of silence. Chris looked down at the little box in his hands. Nondescript and made of plain cardboard, it bore nothing but a small NEIS logo in the corner. He walked to the table and gingerly set it down. It wasn't difficult to open at all, folding apart to reveal its spartan contents; just an instruction manual, and a little persocom underneath it, nestled into the foam packaging.

There was no force on Earth that could make Chris read through that instruction manual just then! He set it to one side and studied the persocom with fascination. She couldn't be so much as seven inches tall, even with the two shoulder-length ponytails of deep red hair growing out from behind her head. A comms panel with IO ports wound its way between her ears, cleverly made to look like a hairband nestled into her hair, and itself obscured by a little bell tied to it with a blue ribbon fashioned into a bow. She was swaddled in her only set of clothes; a deep blue t-shirt to complement the ribbon, under a short-sleeved green jacket and oversized earthen-coloured trousers which ended loosely draped around a small pair of boots.

Chris lifted her gently from the box; she had a definite weight to her that didn't give an impression of delicacy, but he held her as if she were made of blown glass, cupped in his hands just a few inches off the table surface. There was a tiny button behind her ear, hidden beneath her hair. Thinking he maybe should at least _glance_ at the manual, he pressed it.

The little persocom stirred in his hands, eyes opening to reveal irises reminiscent of ruby gemstones. For the moment she did nothing but lay there, gazing blankly into the middle distance. Chris considered reaching for the manual again, but before he could make up his mind she leapt to her feet with a ferocious suddenness that made him jump. The little persocom scanned the room with curiosity before settling her attention on him. When she spoke, her voice was small and high-pitched, but not unpleasantly so; just as if were scaled to her size.

"Boot sequence completed. Good morning. I am your new NEIS Minito 530. Please recite the confirmation code found in your instruction manual to begin my configuration."

"Oh, uh… actually it's the afternoon." Chris said, looking up at the clock on the wall. "See?"

The little persocom followed his gaze. "Good afternoon! What time is it?"

Chris stared at her blankly, and she smiled back at him. She couldn't read an analogue clock? Ah, of course - there was no software configured yet. She must be minimally functional for the setup procedure.

"It's one thirty in the afternoon." he said.

"Okay! Please recite confirmation code." she repeated. Chris set her down carefully on the table where she stood waiting expectantly as he flicked through the manual.

"Page 337," the little persocom prompted. Chris nodded, flicking to the correct page.

"Seven-A-seven-three-B-B-one-nine-H-J-X-P-K" Chris read the code slowly, making sure to pronounce it clearly. This seemed to satisfy her.

"Accepted! Would you like to give me a name?" She looked up at him, gently bobbing up and down on her toes with bountiful energy. A name? What to name her? Chris began to panic. He was rubbish at this sort of thing! Oh, he'd had all day to prepare for choosing a name; why didn't he think up a few then? Her tiny little bell tinkled in time with the bobbing motion, like a metronome counting out the seconds.

_Tiny… well, everything about her is small... ah, that will be cute!_

"Titch!" he said, without a second thought.

"Thank you! My name is Titch." she said, beaming. Chris immediately wondered if he'd made the right decision. What would a typical person call their persocom? Should he have chosen a 'proper' human name? But hearing her repeat it cemented the idea; it seemed... right. That was all the thought he could spare on the matter; answering her first question had opened the floodgates, and the little persocom was already grilling him for more settings and data. He rattled out answers as best he could, skipping a few he didn't understand for later, when he'd have time to read that manual. Titch asked plenty of questions about him personally, which he had not expected. Presumably she would use that data in some way to make herself more useful. She also wanted to see his existing keychain unit; she grabbed at it eagerly when he dug it out of his pocket, snaking a cable out of her hairband and popping it in the data port. Lights behind her eyes flashed and flickered rapidly as she rifled hungrily through his data, the IO LED on his keychain unit cycling faster than he'd ever seen before.

After several minutes of interaction he had sated her curiosity. Titch clapped her little hands in celebration. "We're done! I have anticipated the optimal personality settings and will adopt them now. You may adjust these in detail later if you wish." With that she closed her eyes and appeared for a moment to be deep in thought.

When she opened them again, she simply looked at him happily with a small smile on her lips. Chris blinked, not entirely sure what he had expected. Maybe a big grin? Or a more dour expression? A sigh, or a playful giggle? Whatever he'd thought might happen, it wasn't this. Titch seemed the same as her pre-configured state. Perhaps the changes were just more subtle than he realised? He wasn't even sure what parameters there were to configure specifically, but there couldn't be many on a miniature unit. Just another thing on the long list of stuff he'd need to learn about proper persocoms.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"This is where I work." Chris said. It felt strangely good to say that; as if speaking the words finally bound them in truth.

"Great! What shall we do first?" Titch eagerly surveyed the room they were in. She pattered briskly around the table before eyeing him suspiciously. "There are no papers, documents, terminals or productivity equipment of any kind... Are you sure you work here?"

Chris laughed. "Well, not here specifically. This is a reception room. I don't know where I work exactly, yet. All I know is it's in this building!"

Titch frowned, apparently disappointed with herself. "I'm sorry, I can't locate that for you. Would you like me to try my radio gear?"

"Uh… sure?"

Titch nodded and her eyes flashed briefly as she changed some settings. "Hmm. Error: no valid settings found. Scanning for open access points." She squinted for a moment, and gasped in shock.

"Wo-ow! One moment please!" the lights behind her eyes danced rapidly. "There's so _many_!"

"Many…?"

"Persocoms!" Titch spread her arms in the air, turning and staring as if she could see them all around her.

"That makes sense!" Chris smiled. "This is where they _make_ persocoms! I think we better go see James and Holly now." he reached for her box, remembering to stuff the manual in his pocket first.

"Okay!" Titch squeaked, seeing what he was doing and grabbing a wayward piece of foam padding that had fallen on the table. It was huge in her arms, but she hefted it through the lid well enough before Chris closed it down. He got up and dropped the box in the bin at the side of the room. When he went back to pick Titch up, he realised he wasn't really sure how to carry her. He just threw away her box, and besides she couldn't go in there awake, that was ridiculous… but she couldn't hope to walk alongside him either; she'd get stepped on, assuming she could even keep up! How did other people do it? It was one of those things people did every day, but never really gave much thought to. Like someone without children trying to figure out how on Earth they're supposed to hold a baby - another thing that terrified him! Only, a baby wasn't aware if you were screwing up or not...

Titch cocked her head to one side, a motion that made her bell tinkle gently while she regarded him quizzically. The way she so patiently observed his hesitation made his ears warm with embarrassment. He decided to carefully scoop her into his palm, and she happily adopted a sitting position there, holding on to his thumb.

Sure enough Chris found James and Holly nearby outside the reception room doors. James talked to her, but the voice responding was that of an older-sounding man. It seemed she had connected a call to someone; probably this "Arthur" they had mentioned before. James looked significantly happier than he had several minutes ago; apparently the situation was being resolved to his satisfaction.

The call finished as Chris approached and both of them turned to see him with his new persocom. James grinned warmly, and Holly's face practically lit up with joy.

"Well done mate, she looks like a good one!" James said. His own persocom leant forward, wearing the happiest expression Chris had seen on her yet and inspecting Titch closely. "Aw... she's adorable! Aren't you lucky, Chris! And what lovely eyes!" Holly cooed, her usual air of indifference melting away.

Titch looked around wildly, wide-eyed. Her little ponytails whipped from side to side as she took in the bustle of the huge atrium, and her bell jangled as she looked every which way. She seemed a little overwhelmed by all the new data, shrinking into Chris's hand.

"Look here, little one." Holly said soothingly. Titch stared at her, bringing her focus in with some effort. "That's it," Holly smiled, "I'm offering my UUID, can you see it?"

Titch concentrated for a moment, and having found her signal, nodded quietly.

"That's wonderful. Can we talk for a moment?"

Titch nodded again, and the lights behind their eyes began to dance together. Holly's expression shifted several times, from happiness, to surprise, to satisfaction, and back again. She murmured occasionally as they continued their digital discussion. "Oh… ah, some customisations I see… well that's to be expected, you're an S-Dev unit. Let's see now… You should take this… and that will be helpful too. Ah, very good. This will help as well."

Eventually their eyes stopped flickering. Holly stood up contentedly. Titch shook her head vigorously as if clearing her mind and burst into a cheerful grin.

"All done! It was very nice to meet you, Titch." Holly said. She laughed in delight when the tiny persocom extended her hand. When she extended her own in return, Titch gently shook the tip of her finger.

"Nice to meet you, Holly!" Titch squeaked.

Holly smiled and turned to Chris. "Oh, she's marvellous! Now, this persocom is company property. Please keep her safe and well. I've provided her with the software suites you need for your work and a map of the main complex. She has high-bandwidth WiODA which I've configured so you'll get good network service; that's not normal in her model size. Don't worry, the company foots the bill for it but you two are free to use it however you please. I would suggest you have her accompany you at all times during your first few months in the building, such that you don't get lost."

"T-thanks!" Chris said. Titch seemed far more comfortable now; she looked around the atrium with an air of familiarity, although he could tell its contents were still new and fascinating to her. Her deep red eyes flicked rapidly between every moving thing in sight.

"Don't hold her like that, you lemon!" James chuckled at the way Chris cupped her in his palm. He pointed at his shoulder. "Titch, up!"

The tiny persocom nodded, hopping to her feet. Before Chris could react she had leapt from his hand and scrambled up his arm to perch on his shoulder. He froze in shock, afraid she might fall, but she sat there happily, perfectly balanced and swinging her legs.

"She's not made of china; you don't need to coddle her." James advised him. "If you let her figure out the details she'll be no hassle to carry around with you."

"Wow. That's... really cool." Chris mumbled, unconsciously standing very still.

James rolled his eyes and grinned as he turned to leave. "Come on then, newbie. LOKI is waiting."

"Oh… right! Sorry!"

"Don't apologise, it was LOKI's decision to switch this around. The delay will be expected. Just be glad you missed the _backache…_ heh, you get it? 'Cause the Spine, you know, all overloaded...? ...Come on, nobody?" James sighed as he took the lead. Taking an interest in Titch, Holly followed alongside Chris, who was trying his hardest not to walk as if he were participating in an egg-and-spoon race.

It wasn't easy; free to control her own locomotion, Titch was clambering all over him while they walked, her eyes sponging up every scene before her. He found it very difficult not to instinctively reach for her every time she moved, as if she were about to fall. She cooed with interest at the atrium and the people who passed them by.

As they neared the atrium's front reception desk, Chris began to notice many of the persocoms in the area were smiling and waving at him as they passed. Confused, he instinctively waved back at the next persocom to greet him; Mika, who giggled and and shook her head from behind the reception desk.

"Ah, Chris -" Holly tapped his arm, amusement in her voice. He realised it, then: the persocoms were actually focused on Titch. She was cheerfully pinging every single one in sight, waving as she introduced herself. Mika's laugh reached his ears again, and Chris immediately felt them burning.

"Greetings, Titch! Jolly nice to have you here!" a well-to-do voice called down from above. They looked up to see the Alphabet peering over the railing of the first atrium walkway. Chris winced as Titch shouted a retaliatory "Hi!" from beside his head. She paused mid-wave, her eyes flashing briefly, before she scrambled across the back of his neck to speak to Holly beside him.

"I have something to tell you!" she chirped. Chris cried out in alarm when she nimbly leapt free of his shoulder, clearing the distance to land on Holly's like some kind of two-legged cricket. Without missing a beat she leaned in and planted a tiny kiss on the bigger persocom's cheek. "That's from C!" she whispered, beaming.

Holly glared daggers at the incorrigible persocom on the walkway above. A and B recoiled as if she'd pointed a gun at them, but C just gazed back dreamily, looking for all the world as if he'd been able to plant that kiss himself.

"As I was _about to say_: I suggest you change her privacy settings as soon as you are able." Holly muttered, plucking a giggling Titch off her shoulder and handing her back to Chris.


End file.
